


In the Exclusion Zone

by TheStageManager



Series: In the Exclusion Zone [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ahsoka Tano Needs a Hug, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, CT-7567 | Rex Needs a Hug, Force-Sensitive Clones (Star Wars), Gen, Hurt Cal Kestis, Hurt/Comfort, Kanan Jarrus Needs a Hug, Kix Needs A Hug, Order 66, Padawan Cal Kestis, Padawan Kanan Jarrus, Youngling Ahsoka Tano
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:06:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 43,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23742754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheStageManager/pseuds/TheStageManager
Summary: When Lord Vader leads the 501st in the Siege of the Jedi Temple, Captain Rex decides that he wasn't bred to slaughter younglings.Set in an AU where Ahsoka is still a youngling during Order 66.
Relationships: CT-5597 | Jesse & CT-21-0408 | Echo, CT-6116 | Kix & CT-7567 | Rex, CT-6116 | Kix & Kanan Jarrus, CT-7567 | Rex & Ahsoka Tano, Cal Kestis & CT-7567 | Rex, Depa Billaba & Kanan Jarrus, Kanan Jarrus & Ahsoka Tano, Kanan Jarrus & CT-7567 | Rex, Kanan Jarrus & Cal Kestis, Kanan Jarrus & Cal Kestis & Ahsoka Tano
Series: In the Exclusion Zone [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1800640
Comments: 371
Kudos: 541
Collections: Kix/Jesse, TexWash's Must Reads and Rereads





	1. Everything You Love We Came to Bury

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by “In the Exclusion Zone" by Melanie Rae Thon. Here is a link, if you want to read it, which I highly recommend: https://orionmagazine.org/article/in-the-exclusion-zone/

_We buried the earth, cut into the soil and rolled the earth like a rug—grass, flowers, worms, beetles—heaved the earth into shallow graves, buried the earth with ants and spiders. We sawed trees and buried forests—eggs, milk, wells, gardens. You left a note on the door:_

Please don’t hurt the cat.  
She kills the voles. She helps  
the garden. ...

We’ll be home soon.  
We’ll come home later.

_We dug a pit on the side of your house. We buried your house in the pit. We buried your village._

_You can’t come home to the Zone. The Zone is off limits. We photographed ourselves in your vacant houses. We ate the canned beans. We ate the canned cherries._

Dear, kind Person,  
Use whatever you need.

_We shot your cats and dogs. Their fur, their breath, their tongues—dangerous._

_Why speak now? The human mind is not enough to understand it."_

\- "In the Exclusion Zone" by Melanie Rae Thon

* * *

“Bury everything they love!” Lord Vader shouts, his rage and fury pouring into the Force like lava and smoke as he directs the 501st into the Jedi Temple.

The clones break down the door and immediately begin to fire, blue blaster bolts slipping through the air like diving barn swallows—like shooting stars but, instead of wishes, they carry pain and death and betrayal.

CT-7567 is not yet aware that he has been betrayed, nor is he aware what he, himself is betraying. That’s the beauty of the inhibitor chip, it leaves no room for personal thoughts outside of the endless, droning reminder that good soldiers follow orders. It leaves no space for individuality, everything blotted out by that singular, spinning desire to _be a good soldier._

The air is lit up with 501st Blue: the blaster bolts echo their colors across the smoke that threatens to swallow the temple whole.

CT-7565 watches somebody-who-used-to-be-his-brother mow down a middle aged Laset Jedi. His arms are spread wide to accept all the fire, his head twisted around as he shouts at a fiery-haired padawan to ‘Go! Run!’

The padawan is young and shiny and terrified. His eyes are red and his cheeks are stained with tears and he backs away, still torn between saving his Master and saving himself.

_Everything you love, we came to bury,_ CT-7567 thinks distantly as the Master takes a blaster bolt right to the face and collapses in the dust, and the padawan screams in agony as their bond is broken before disappearing deeper into the Temple where he will, inevitably, meet the same fate.

_Everything you love, we came to bury._ The thought carried pain and regret, feelings which slide in behind CT-7567’s battered heart and threaten to pop it out and discard it like a used, corroded battery. He lowers his blaster for a moment and struggles to breathe, suddenly hyperaware of his surroundings and the nagging sensation that _this is wrong._

He feels blood surging through his veins—the tips of his fingers pulsate against the trigger of his blaster. Tangled up beside the Desire to _be a good soldier_ is the Desire to _do no harm._ He cannot explain that desire. It goes against orders.

And good soldiers follow orders.

They break into the entryway. CT-7567 follows behind his troops at a distance while Lord Vader charges ahead of them. Behind his bucket, the ghost of a smirk tempts CT-7567’s lip, paired with a fleeting memory that isn’t secure enough to latch down—His General always was like that, wasn’t he? He always knew what he want.

No, but that’s wrong.

That man, with the burning yellow eyes and the _hate hate hate hate_ that bleeds into the Force—that man is not his General. His General is dead. Lord Vader and his General wear the same face, but they are two very different men. The man—the Sith Lord—that leads them into the Jedi Temple to destroy is _not_ their General. He is their master and they are enslaved beneath him.

Order 66 has stripped them of their names, their thoughts, their free will.

Which is fine because good soldiers follow orders.

Except, this Temple isn’t just some random war campaign, he’s been here before. He recognizes the hallways, recognizes the slackened faces that lay dead on the floor and he, for a moment, begins to wonder if he is a good soldier after all.

A blue Twi’lek—the Master Healer—is dying in the hallways, slumped against a walls, gasping for air. Somewhere behind the Mantra _good soldiers follow order good soldiers follow orders good soldiers follow orders_ he is distantly aware that he knows this woman. She had a name, once, and he knew it, back when he had a name, too. He kneels beside her and she doesn’t flinch from him. She must have sensed his turmoil in the force because she smiles at him—even as tears of _so much regret_ dribble down her ashen cheeks—and addresses him by a name he no longer recognizes.

He ought to be reaching for his blaster. He doesn’t. Instead, he reaches out and presses a shaking hand against her wound, as if some parts of him believes he can save her.

He cannot.

She dies with a sharp gasp, whispering a forgiveness he doesn’t deserve.

The Jedi Master Healer is dead. This ought to be cause for triumph and celebrating, but CT-7567 only feels an aching hollowness that threatens to consume all things.

_Good soldiers follow orders_ , the chip reminds him, and he is swallowed up by its hold.

The Archives are ransacked and burnt down. The dormitories are cleansed of their inhabitants. The Room of a Thousand Fountains stands no chance against their bombs and blasters.

(CT-7567 has only ever been in the Room of a Thousand Fountains once before. His General’s master had taught him to meditate. He’d had a name, then. He can’t remember what that name was.)

Good soldiers follow orders.

The order is to destroy. To annihilate. To kill. Nothing is allowed to remain. No one is allowed to survive.

CT-7567 approaches the Great Council Room, but he is not the first to have arrived: even from outside of the door, he sees the mutilated bodies of younglings scattered across the room. The story is not hard to decipher: they had been hiding here and were discovered. The wounds that litter their bodies are not from blasters but from a lightsaber. CT-7567 recognizes some of their broken faces. This should not upset him.

It does.

The only survivor of the massacre is a lone Togruta girl, who’s hiding must have been clever enough that Lord Vader had passed her over. She has buried herself in the arms of one of her lifeless friends and cries, as if believing that her tears could’ve brought him back.

The urge to raise his blaster and fire her is almost overwhelming, but CT-7567 cannot bring himself to follow though. The Mantra tries to comfort him: Good soldiers follow orders, and their orders are to kill, so she has to die. It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t look old enough to know how to hold a pencil correctly, let alone wield and fight with a lightsaber. Lord Vader has deemed the Jedi too dangerous to live and she is a Jedi so she will die.

_And what will be written on her grave?_ The clone thinks in growing, furious defiance and refuses to be comforted. _“Here lies a little child the almighty Sith Lord killed because he was afraid of her.” That? How shameful._

The chip grows angrier and angrier and his defiance. He can feel it pressing up inside of his skull, vibrating against his brain, driving him _mad mad mad mad_ with its relentless humming, beating, lulling.

Amidst his battle for free will, the clone’s ravaged mind draws upon the realization that, in the event of her death, the young Togruta was rather unlikely she’d receive a headstone. Lord Vader would probably have her body cast aside and heaped with the others—all left to rot, forgotten, unimportant—

_—nameless._

_I will not serve an Empire that is paved with the corpses of little kids._

The whole world splits in two as the clone’s head fills with suppressed, forbidden memories. The droning Mantra balks and roars, trying to kill his new, independent thoughts. The clone claws as his bucket and pries it off, sucking his sharp, raged breaths as if he had been drowning. His knees give way beneath him as the pain surging through his mind becomes unbearable. He feels as if he is being torn apart from the inside, as if he his holding his shredded mind together by the tips of his fingers.

He remembers, in his extremity, that he has a name.

Rex is his name.

He reaches out to the Force, clinging onto the Light the Jedi have sworn themselves to serve, and promises that, if it will deliver him here, he will swear himself to serve it, too.

The Light accepts and the chaos in his mind falls quiet.

Rex casts his blaster to the side and picks up his bucket and puts it back on, and pushes his way into the Council Room to retrieve the child.

The young Togruta girl is startled by his presence and leaps to her feet, standing defiantly between the clone and the bodies of her friends. She holds a wooden training saber, one that is far too big for her little hands, out in front of her, as if she thinks it will protect her.

“Go away!” she shouts. She shakes. Tears dribble down her cheeks.

The padawan, the Master healer, the youngling—are all Jedi so weak-willed and prone to tears?

(They’ve lost their home, their friends and masters, their Order is destroyed. Can they be blamed?)

_Everything you love, we came to bury._

The thought is accompanied by a guilt the burns so hot, it takes Rex’s breath away.

_What have I done?_

There isn’t time to dwell on such things. The other clones surely aren’t far behind him. They need to get out of here if they want to escape with their lives.

“I won’t hurt you,” Rex promises and, in a gesture of good will, gets down on his knees and hold his arms open wide.

The child is traumatized, and rightfully so. The movement only seems to aggravate her further, and her face twists up and burns red with anger and hurt and loss. “Yes you will! Yes you will!” she screams and Rex winces. Surely they will be caught if she continues to be so loud.

“My name is...” Rex squeezes his eyes shut. Even with the assistance of _whatever the hell the Force was doing_ the chip was still in his brain, vibrating, influencing whatever it could still left under his dominion. Rex flounders. The word feels wrong on his tongue but he spits it out anyways. “... Rex. My name is Rex. I’m here to help. I’m going to protect you,”

The child doesn’t budge and Rex resists the urge to groan in exasperating. He can hear footsteps down the hall. Someone is coming and they need to leave. “Come on, hurry,” Rex urges, reaching for the Togruta’s arm to pull her close and-

The little gremlin _whacks_ him in the bucket with the training saber!

“Ow!” Rex cries and recoils.

“Go away!” the little girl demands once more.

This time, Rex acquiesces and gives into the urge and groans: half out of frustration, half out of panic. His aching mind is reeling as he tries to think of another tactic to win her trust over.

Oh.

Oh.

Slowly, he removed his bucket and sets it aside. “See? I’m not like the others. I’m not a...”

_Monster._ He wants to say. But that feels wrong (because he is) so he withholds.

“I-I’m not like them. I’m just a person. Like you, see?” Then, he begins removing his gauntlets until his fingers and free. He wiggles them for her.

The Togruta takes a hesitant step forward and lowers her stick. She’s terrified, he can see it written all over her face. She wants so badly to trust him.

Removing his armor seems to do the trick so he immediately behinds to take it off, piece by pieces, until he’s completely armor free from the waist up, left in only his blacks. His legs are going numb from kneeling for so long. He reaches for her once more, panicked, feeling tears prickling at his eyes because _he has to save her_.

“Come here. Please. _Please_ , little one. You can trust me, I’ll protect you,” he’s practically begging now.

An explosion goes off somewhere else in the Temple and the ground shakes. The Togruta’s eyes well up with tears and she looks desperately at Rex who manages a smile and nods. Then, she finally, _finally_ abandons the training saber and practically launches himself into his arms, burying her face against the crook of his neck. She immediately begins to cry and he feels like crying too.

No time for that.

Out. Out. Out. They have to find a way out.

He leaves his armor abandoned on the Council Floor, but does collect his blaster as he slips out of the room. He feels an instinctive draw towards the newly destroyed Room of a Thousand Fountains. There’s nothing left for the clones in there now that it has been utterly laid to waste. It feels like the perfect place to hide.

The Togruta curls up in his arms as he presses into the shadows, her tiny fingers fisting into the fabric of his blacks. Bodies of Jedi are strewn haplessly across the floor. He holds his own tiny Jedi a little tighter.

“Don’t look up,” he says firmly. “No matter what happens, no matter how badly you want to, don’t look up. We’ll be safe soon,” he orders. And the child doesn’t respond, she doesn’t even shift in his arms. Her body begins to tremor, softly, and it occurs to Rex, in a surge of blind panic, that he hadn’t checked her for injuries.

Thinking on his toes, bends down and retrieved a heavy cloak from off the corpse of a Jedi who surely won’t miss it.

He’ll feel guilty about looting the bodies of the recently deceased later.

He wraps the tiny child in cloak, hoping to stave off the cold and shock and trauma until they’re safe,

When, at last, he reaches the Room of a Thousand Fountain, his arms are aching. She’s heavier than he expects her to be. He is, for a moment, completely overwhelmed by the energy of the room—powerful and peaceful and in so much pain.

He finds an alcove in a decimated tower of rock and rubble and tucks himself inside, finally able to take the time to assess the child for injuries.

To his great surprised she is awake and uninjured, though her eyes are half-lidded and glassy. Shock. She’s in shock. The utter inhalation of your people would do that to you.

“Hey, kid,” he said softly. “It’s okay. You’re going to be okay,” Rex assures as he tucks her against his side and she clings to him, wordlessly shaking her head.

His mouth is dry and his throat is tight. What comfort can he offer to her? “What’s your name?” he asked, trying to prompt a response from her.

“...Ahsoka,” she says, half heartedly, and flinches against Rex with a strangled cry as more blaster fire sounds in the distance.

“It’s alright,” he assures. “I’m scared too,”

She doesn’t respond to this.

Sighing heavily, he wraps her in the cloak once again. “Get some sleep, kid. I’ll get us out of here,”

Ahsoka reaches out and takes one of his hands in her her own, tiny, tiny hand—a gesture of comfort on her behalf—and let’s her heavy eyes fall.

Rex allows her to sleep peacefully for a few minutes, before bundling her up and tucking her away, safe and hidden.

“I’ll be back, kid. I promise, I’ll be back,” he assures and rises to his feet.

There are other survivors, tucked away in the hidden places of this Temple. Perhaps, if Rex could find them before his brothers did, there would be hope.


	2. The God of Worms Walks With Us All

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to he_who_is_not_here for convincing me that, yes, this story need more chapters!

_In the beginning, we were on the roof of Reactor Three, heaving shovels full of debris into the heart of the fire. Ninety seconds was a lifetime’s work, a thousand years of radiation._

_If we were among the lucky, blessed enough to die, they buried us in wood and zinc, lead and plastic._

_Thirty years and even now our bodies glow underground. Even now our hair could kill you._

\- “In the Exclusion Zone” by Melanie Rae Thon

* * *

The streets of Coruscant are dark and silent. Such a silence, Rex has never known. Even during campaigns on far-away, empty planets, the air was filled with sound: animals, insects, blaster-fire, _brothers._

_Some people believe that the universe sings; that the movement of Celestial Bodies in their orbits—moons around planets, planets around stars, stars around singularities—can produce resonant harmonies that echo across the vast emptiness of space._

_The Song of the Spheres, they call it._

_There were countless sleepless nights during the war. Rex remembers lying beside his brothers beneath the countless stars, all of them closing their eyes and pretending to hear music._

_In this new, cruel galaxy, there is no music._

_In Lord Vader’s galaxy, there are no stars left to sing._

Rex is no Jedi; he doesn’t claim to understand the Force. He does, however, understand that it is completely absent here, in the Temple that used to house it. It lays, bent and broken on the Temple floor, just as dead, just as mutilated as the Jedi who used to worship it. 

_Time bows to no god._

Night falls. Lord Vader and his troops have fled the premise, leaving only a few of his (not) brothers behind, standing as mindless sentinels. 

_They are not my brothers anymore._

When he has time, he will grieve them—the living more than the dead; the dead are lucky. The living are useless, rendered hollow by their programming, treated no better than the droids they were created to destroyed. 

Rex is bleeding somewhere on his side; he can feel the coagulating blood cooling somewhere between his skin and his blacks. He can’t really feel it anymore. He doesn’t really feel _anything_ anymore, which is nice. 

He’s got some mutilated kid in his arms, bundled up beneath his chin and it occurs to him, much too late, that the blood running down his sides _is not his own._ The boy’s injures are extensive: he looks like he’s been mauled by a wild animal. 

_Rex had stumbled across one of his brothers hunched over the kid, trying to bash the little Jedi’s brains in with the side of his bucket. Rex had the great misfortune of recognizing both parties: the clone was_ vode, _newly minted “Neato”; the boy was the padawan of the Lasat Jedi who’d been gunned down on the stairs of the Temple._

_The clone—some dumb kid who was so shiny, he’d only received his name a week prior—may well have been an animal: his eyes were wide and feral, his jaw hung slack as if he were completely incapable of higher thought which, in hindsight, was probably an accurate assumption: the back of his skull was completely caved in. Rex had cursed Vader all the more for it: even with such a grievous injury, the chip still spurred the trooper on to follow orders, overriding even the most basic instincts of self-preservation._

_Rex put a true-blue blaster bolt right between the trooper’s eyes and nearly broke down and wept over it: he’d never killed his_ vode _before._

Rex is no stranger to death. To him, it is not a foreign thing, it is not abstract or intangible. It is real, it is alive. Death is an angry god. There had been rites and rituals and superstitions he and his brothers used to indulge in before battles, hoping to appease that great God of Entropy: prayers to the Force; prayers to the old Mandalorian gods; prayers to the gods worshiped by the natives of whatever backwater, Outer Rim planet the war had carried them to; touching up armor pain; last-minute head-shaving; sweeping dirt away from doorsteps and walking backwards under eopie-shoes nailed above doorways; battle cries and war chants; hell, Tup used to break plates before each campaign, claiming he’d learned the tradition from some stint he’d served with Obi-Wan and the 212th on Naboo.

Where had their rituals gotten them?

Tup died.

Fives died.

Hardcase, Jesse, 99, Waxer, Hevy… dead. All dead.

And the survivors?

Enslaved.

On the battlefield, he watched his men dig shallow graves for their brothers and, before the day was out, lay themselves in the very same graves they had dug, their corpses eaten out by ants and beetles within the week.

_The God of Worms walks with us all._

Rex is no stranger to death, but here, in the Temple, where the air is thick with the stench of _mutilation_ , Rex fears he may choke. 

The kid in Rex’s arms is dying—he doesn’t need the Force to see it. He feels the child’s ragged breaths, hot and tight and pained against his shoulder, growing shallower and shallower. He hears them rattling around in the boy’s smoke-damaged lungs with each broken inhalation. With every step and stumble, the boy whimpers and shudders in pain, trying to tuck his fiery red hair against Rex’s chest—the tiny, stumpy padawan braid sticking out awkwardly from the side of his head and bobbing with every stride. Rex longs to stop, to aid the little padawan or, at the very least, ease his suffering. It is an ache that weighs heavier than any singularity in the universe, but Rex is duty bound and cannot stop: he has other charges to protect. 

Shuffling and faltering not far behind Rex is a second padawan: slightly older than the boy with the bloodstained copper hair, but still young, nonetheless. The older boy, Caleb, keeps one hand tightly latched onto the back of Rex’s blacks and stumbles over every piece of debris they cross, as if he can’t see what lays in the path ahead of them. Every once and a while he hesitates, tugging on Rex’s blacks and whispering, “Wait, please... she said she’d be right behind me...” 

Rex’s arms are growing weak—they can’t afford to wait, and he doesn’t have the strength to tell the padawan that his master lied. 

“She’ll find us in the Fountain Room. We’ll wait for her there,” he says, and this pacifies the boy. 

When, at last, the shambling trio reaches the Room of a Thousand Fountain, Rex can no longer feel his arms or legs. He lurches forward, driven only by the fear that perhaps he is too late. If he was gone too long, if the little girl, Ahsoka, had woken up, what would stop her from slipping back into the hallways? What would stop the rogue clones from gunning her down?

As he draws near the little alcove, he becomes acutely aware that his worst fears are coming to life right before his eyes: Some clone, white armor streaked in blood red and 501st blue, is hunched over in the alcove.

Rex shifts the mangled child to one arm so he can reach out and pull Caleb close with the other; the older padawan is spooked and looks ready to bolt. Rex can’t risk that. 

With his arms full of the _last scions of the Jedi religion,_ he has no arms left to reach for his blaster, though his fingers itch for the security of the trigger. This, however, doesn’t stop him from calling out, desperate to drive the attacker away from Ahsoka. 

(Not like it matters anymore. He’s already too late; the clone has found the girl and the girl is surely dead.)

“Hey!” 

The hunching clone stiffens and straightens up—he’s missing his bucket which is unusual but doesn’t serve to ease Rex’s fears. (After all, the last bucket-less clone he’d come across was trying to beat a little boy to death.) Slowly, the foreign brother turns around and Rex finds himself staring into Kix’s horrified, tear stained eyes. 

The breathing catching in the commander’s throat. For what feels like eons and eons, neither party moves. Then, quietly, Kix croaks out, shaking and uncertain: 

“Rex?” 

Rex’s death grip on the children in his arms eases and he nearly collapsed from the flooding wave of relief. Kix rises and moves forward saying something that Rex can’t quite understand because of the _rushing-pounding_ blood in his ears. 

Then, suddenly, Kix’s expression turns to a snarl and he lurches forward, screaming, his hands wrapping around Rex’s throat. Reality comes hurtling into the commander, who jerks backwards, nearly losing his hold on the red-haired boy, and he lands a heavy kick squarely on the medic’s chest. 

Kix slams against the ground and immediately curls up, balling up his fists and bashing them against the side of his head. 

“First, do no harm,” Kix mutters under his breath. “First, do no harm,”

Rex doesn’t move, gripping Caleb’s shoulder so hard it must be bruising, but Caleb doesn’t make a peep, his eyes wide and glassy and far away. 

“I-I’m so sorry, Rex,” Kix whispers after an eternity of silence. “I’m so sorry... I didn’t mean to- I lost control and I-“ The medic squeezes his eyes shut and slams his fists against the side of his head one more. “Do no harm. First, do no harm,” he repeats, trying to drive the mantra into his skull with every swing of his fists. 

“Kix, enough!” Rex orders, his voice reverberating with such passion that Caleb flinches away. 

Kix stills and slowly cracks his eyes open with a certain kind of expression Rex hasn’t seen since Umbara. 

“I’m a medic, Rex. I took an _oath_ ,” Kix mourned lowly. “ _First, do no harm._ I took an oath and I _broke_ it,” 

Rex’s arms are giving out. He doesn’t have the strength, doesn’t have the energy to reach out and comfort Kix. All he can do is steady the medic. “You made a mistake, Kix. Don’t do it again,” 

Kix’s wide eyes, wild and untamed, are desperate in a way that reminds Rex of Navarro—of children torn away from their parents, looking up at him with wide, frightened eyes, begging to be rescued from their lives of torture. 

Rex’s throat runs dry. He has no comfort to offer. There is no comfort left in the whole Galaxy. Instead, he sinks to his knees and offers _work_ , offers a distraction, presenting the bloodied child for Kix to examine. 

“Help me, Kix,” he begs, his voice horse.

There are so many things Rex wants to say. He wants to hold his brother. He wants to offer comfort; wants to hide his face in the medic’s shoulder and weep; wants to grieve over their dead brothers, their dead Jedi; wants to thank Kix for _still being alive—_ but there wasn’t time. Perhaps, if they were both lucky, there would be time later. But now, a child was dying and the night was growing thin.

_Time bows to no god. Not even Death._

Kix’s eyes fall on the smaller Jedi and immediately the haze in his eyes clears away. His face hardens, the angst and turmoil disappearing behind a steady mask of stoic concentration. The medic’s hands over the child while his eyes flicker back and forth, studying, analyzing. 

The kid is in bad shape, this is obvious—broken bones, head trauma, lacerations, internal bleed… Kriffing hell, it sounds like he’s got a punctured lung that’s just about ready to give up the ghost.

Kix doesn’t have the medical supplies needed to treat the kid—this is obvious from the moment Kix lays eyes on him. That, however, won’t stop him from trying.

Rex released his hold on Caleb who either no longer perceives Kix as a threat, or has determined that _Rex is saftey,_ safe enough that he can risk letting his guard down around the medic because _Rex will protect him_. 

Either way, the older padawan collapses to his knees, hardly able to keep his eyes open, and Rex wraps an arm around his shoulders protectively. The kid sags against Rex, toppling over like an ancient, abandoned structure that has existed, without purpose, for far too long. 

From the alcove behind Kix, a tiny Togruta girl cautiously peeks her tear-stained face out from behind the rocks. “You!” she exclaims, her voice warbling. 

Immediately Ahsoka emerges from behind the rocks and extends her chubby arms towards the clone commander, before charging at a speed Rex never thought possible for creatures so young. She trips, accidentally, on the red-haired boy’s legs, earning a curse from Kix who otherwise ignores her. Unperturbed, she barrels into Rex’s arms, forcefully wedging herself into the space between exhausted clone and the exhausted padawan. 

Immediately, she bursts into tears, choking on hiccups and sputtering in a language that Rex doesn’t speak. Caleb, exhausted beyond the point of coherency, doesn’t react much, but Rex squeezes his shoulder reassuringly, just in case.

“You weren’t coming back!” She wails and Rex’s heart tightens. Kix casts a sidelong glance at clone commander, and Rex merely nods: they both understand the feeling. 

“Yes, I did. Look! Here I am,” Rex says patiently. “I’ll always come back for you, little ‘un,” he assures, carefully prying her out the little space she’d wedged herself into and moving her to the other side of his lap. It’s comfier for him this way (his leg was falling asleep) and he can only assume that the little Togruta seems to feel the same way, as she quickly latches onto him, wrapping her little arms around his middle and twisting around to press her face into the crook of his elbow. 

She stays like this, with her vice-like grip on Rex’s blacks while the clone commander pats her back with his heavy, calloused hand. 

“Quite the gaggle of Jedi you’ve acquired,” Kix says in a tone that would’ve been humorous, if it wasn’t so heavy with grief and regret. 

Rex merely grunts, nodded in affirmation as Ahsoka’s sobs quiet down. 

Kix’s tears his eyes away from his patient just long enough to watch with fascination as Ahsoka shyly peaks out from Rex’s arms, twists around, and takes one of Caleb’s hands, which had fallen limp at his sides. 

“You disobeyed orders,” Kix observes, his eyes falling back to the younger boy on the ground.

Rex swallows a lump in his throat. He knows exactly what Kix is trying to ask. “I don’t kill children,” he whispers. 

“Anybody else come to their sense?” Kix asks, unable or unwilling to look up. 

“Just us,” Rex affirms and all Kix can respond with is a hollow: “Oh,”

“We need to get the chips out,” Rex says, ignoring the way tears gather on his lashes like snowflakes on stones during a heavy storm. 

Kix nods in agreement, an action that was a little too desperate: his whole body shakes, and he jostles the boy on the ground, who is too weak to do more than moan softly. “We need a ship,” 

“I’ll find us one,” Rex says a little too quickly and shifts, as if planning to dislodge himself from the children sleeping in his arms. 

“Don’t.” Kix orders, scowling, and Rex can’t help but bark out a laugh. It’s the first modicum of _Kix_ he’s seen since the nightmare began—up until that point, he had started to worry that the chip had damaged Kix’s personality irrevocable. 

Much to Rex’s great relief, Kix manages a little smirk before his expression crumbles the shaking in his hands returns. “I can’t be left alone. I can’t be trusted,” 

Rex scowls. “Don’t say that,” he says, almost wanting to pick a fight, wanting to reject the situation. But Kix doesn’t offer any sort of rebuttal and a cold emptiness settles in Rex’s stomach. 

“You’re not fighting it?” Kix asks and sets one of the boy’s leg bones back into place with a dreadful snap. The padawan doesn’t even flinch. He’s getting worse. “I can barely hold it off,” 

Rex considers this for a moment, carefully maneuvering a sleeping Caleb into a more horizontal position, with padawan’s head laying in his lap. It’s strange, really. To Rex, the Jedi had always felt distant, out of rank and out of reach. And now, here he is, holding and comforting two strange Jedi younglings in the same way he used to comfort shinies after losing batch-mates for the first time. 

Rex is aware, distantly, of the sound of drums. It beats somewhere in the back of his mind whispering orders that he can’t quite make out.

“No, I hardly notice it,” Rex. 

When Kix looks up at him questioningly, Rex only whispers, reverently, “The Force is with me,” and neither men speak for a long time.

Time grows strange in the Temple. Minutes fall away and bleed into hours. The younglings sleep in peace while two Clones keep vigil in silence. 

Time knows no god; it does not bow to the Jedi, nor does it bow to the Sith. Not even Death can temper Time. Even after so much carnage, after the genocide of one people and the enslavement of another, the planets continue to turn on their axes and orbit their stars—outside the Temple, footsteps fall into an ordinary day as early-morning workers rise and begin their routines—millions of people unaware of the tragedy that has befallen the galaxy only hours prior.

“We need to go,” Kix whispers solemnly. 

“The boy?” Rex asks and Kix merely shakes his head. 

“I don’t think I can save him,”

There’s an inexplicable grief that wells up in Rex’s chest. Kix must feel it too because he asks, softly, “What was his name, commander?”

Rex merely shakes his head, feeling older and wearier than any star that has ever ignited. He resists the urge to flinch away from the title he no longer has the strength to wear. “I don’t know,”

Kix nods slowly, helplessly, his mind turning. “Then we’ll give him one,” 

“What?” Rex asks, startled. 

“We’ll give him one. Maybe we can’t save him, but he shouldn’t- Rex, he shouldn’t be buried nameless,” 

_‘I am not just another number!’_ Fives’ voice rattles around inside Rex’s mind like a metal ball in a tin can. _‘None of us are!’_

“ _Part’oyay_ ,” Rex says and Kix smirks. 

“A terrible name,” the medic critiques. “A real mouthful. Poor kid’s gonna get bullied for the rest of his life,” 

Rex chuckles, a bittersweet pain welling up in his chest as he gathers Ahsoka into his arms and shakes Caleb awake. “You carry _Part’ika_ ,” he instructs and, when Kix hesitates, he explains, “We named him, Kix. He’s _vode_ now and I... I’m not leaving anymore brothers behind,” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part'oyay - "remember life"


	3. The Parting of a Mother and a Son

_Someday some one will write a story set  
in a place called The Skull, and it will tell,  
among other things, of a parting between mother  
and son, of how she wandered off, of how he vanished  
in air._

\- "The Seven Last Words" by Mark Strand

* * *

_[What determines whether a man is good or bad?]_

Their ship is small and stolen. 

Kix squeezes back into the small medical bay and eases little _Part’ika_ onto the cot and immediately flips on the med droid to tend to the boy.

(He can fight against the chip’s barrage of commands for a little while longer, if it means saving the kid’s life.) 

Rex shuttles Ahsoka inside, still wrapped up in her cloak, her swollen, tear-stained eyes shut tight as her soft, even breaths ghost against the edge of his jaw. 

Caleb follows along behind, shaking from the exhaustion, or trauma, or hunger, or, perhaps, simply from the bite of the cold night air. He moves quickly in spite of his halting steps—he’d rolled an ankle during a training exercise with master Depa earlier that morning, before the death and the pain, before everything he loved grew feral and was buried.

The sun hangs low behind the vast expanse of city lights. Far away, a clock tower tolls, marking the hour 0500. 

Less than twenty-four hours prior, at 0630, Master Depa had woken him to begin their daily routine. 

It was supposed to be a Lazy Day, one rare moment spent in their home on Coruscant rather than on some warship hurtling through space towards another campaign of violence and suffering and death. There had been plans to meditate, to catch up on studies, to practice katas and, maybe, as a treat, eat dinner at that diner Master Kenobi had recommended so many times. 

Lazy Days had been special to Caleb and his master. On Lazy Days, they didn’t have to be generals and commanders in an endless war; they didn’t have to play God and make decisions as to who would live and who would die, they didn’t have to hurt or _kill._ On Lazy Days, they were allowed to be a Master and a Padawan, the way it was meant to be. On Lazy Days, Caleb was allowed to act his age and Depa was allowed to be frustrated with him. Lazy Days were supposed to be good days, the sorts of days where nothing could ever go wrong. 

Like all Lazy Days, it had played out the same: Caleb had, of course, hidden his face beneath the covers, torn between wanting to be the _very best padawan ever_ and wanting _just five more minutes_ of sleep to finish off a rather silly dream that, moments later, he couldn’t recall. Master Depa, however, had always been too clever for her padawan’s old tricks and knew just how to lure him out. She had piled his portion of breakfast onto a plate and stood just beside his door, letting the smell of it waft inside. She could hear his stomach growl (he was a growing boy, always hungry) and waited until she felt him begin to perk up to start the traditional dialogue: 

“Ah. My poor young padawan doesn’t seem hungry today. What a shame! I’ll just have to finish this all myself,” Master Depa had called out, teasing. 

She then, hurriedly, returned to the table to act casual while she heard Caleb scrambling to dress himself. 

“Forgive me, Master, for my lateness,” was Caleb’s response as he emerged from his room, his tunic backwards and his hair sticking up in all directions. “I was meditating,” His voice, still cracking from sleep, held an equally jesting tone and he bowed to his master, who quickly returned the gesture, playing along with the game. 

“Meditating? It’s a miracle! Look at how responsible you are. My padawan, I am so proud,” she had praised, practically beaming with light.

“Thank you, master,” Caleb had said and bowed curtly once more. “And what will we be studying today?” 

Depa’s smile turned mischievous as she reach out to smooth back his wild bed head. “Today, my padawan, the lesson will be on _telling believable lies_ ,” 

Caleb had laughed. 

Caleb always laughed when Master Depa teased him—she had been very good at making him laugh, always had a little humor on hand to lighten the mood when war became too dark, too heavy, to _real_ for a fourteen-year-old boy to carry.

Caleb does not think he will ever laugh again. 

Ten hours later, the entire temple was in flames. 

Ten hours later, the Jedi were extinct. 

Time is cruel like that. 

A single moment changes everything: volcanos erupt and pyroclastic surges freeze cities into stone within seconds—people flash-heat to death, blood boiling, skulls exploding, long before they have time to suffocate. Moons or large meteors collide with planets teeming with life and within hours, the surface of the planet boils and all life is gone, millions of years of evolution wasted. New diseases evolve from viruses—clusters of atoms so small, they can’t even be classified as _life—_ and within days or weeks or months, history is changed forever. 

The Siege of the Jedi Temple only lasted an hour or two. Genocide and extinction are not complication actions in the eyes of the unforgiving wheels of time. 

_[What determines whether a man is good or bad? Is it his nature? His morals? His actions? If a man learns to temper his emotions and overcome his cowardice, is he better for it?]_

Caleb can feel urgency in the force around them, knows that Kix and Rex are waiting for him to step aboard their stolen ship, but he freezes, standing just at the threshold with wide, desperate eyes. 

_“Today, my padawan, the lesson will be on telling believable lies,”_

He trusts his master implicitly. She would never lie to him. Lying is wrong. It is bad. And she is so _good_.

_“Go! I’ll be right behind you!”_

She would never lie to him. 

The clones are coming, the noise of the ship attracting them like vultures to carrion. 

“Caleb! Hurry! We need to go!” Rex shouts over the roar of the propellers. 

Caleb, transfixed, doesn’t move. 

_I’ll be right behind you!_

She has never lied to him before. 

“Caleb!”

There’s a first time for everything. 

“No! I can’t!” the padawan shouts. “I can’t leave my master, she’s coming!” he shouts. “She’s coming!”

Everybody knows that everybody dies. 

Caleb knows that Master Depa is dead, he felt their bond shatter—felt the twisted metal shrapnel and shards of broke glass spray across his lungs—but he cannot accept it. He refuses to look at the empty space in his heart where her side of the bond used to occupy. 

Caleb knows that Master Depa has lied to him. 

He won’t allow himself to cry. Crying would mean acknowledging her death, and the deaths of every Jedi in the galaxy, of everybody he’d ever loved. 

How is he supposed to cope with that kind of loss? 

He’s trying so hard to keep himself from crying that he’s physically shaking. He grits his teeth and his hand ghosts over his lightsaber, as if he intends to slaughter every trooper headed towards them, all in defense of his temple, his master—

Rex puts a hand on his shoulder. 

“She’s not coming, Caleb. You know she’s not. Don’t let her sacrifice be in vain,” 

_[Or is bravery hollow?]_

Caleb chokes back a sob and balls his fists, bowing his head. 

He allows himself to be lead inside. 

\- - -

_[What determines whether a man is good or bad?]_

Some of his men used to pray before battle. Rex was not one of those men. He thought it was a foolish practice. Gods don’t listen to clones. Clones aren’t real enough to be heard. 

But the Force is with Rex. It’s the only thing protecting him from the merciless cruelty of the chip that threatens to eat him from the inside out. 

Caleb has pressed himself in the corner, and moves so little, Rex could mistake him for a statue. 

Kix is in the medbay, programming the droid for a special surgery to remove the chips and, perhaps for the first time in their lives, grant them their freewill. 

(It is not a gift Rex feels he is worthy to receive.)

_Part’ika_ is asleep, a tube running down his nose and into his lungs. A machine breathes for him. Nobody expects him to wake up. 

Ahsoka is bundled up in her big cloak, fast asleep on Rex’s lap. 

The silence is empty, hollow. Rex can feel it in his veins, clawing at his skin from the inside out. 

He misses his brothers. 

He misses his General. 

_[Is a murderer worthy of forgiveness? A man can change but the past does not. Lives taken cannot be given back. Does that make him unforgivable?]_

Rex bows his head and, for the first time in his life, he prays. He has no idea how it’s meant to be done, but General Kenobi taught him to meditate once, so that’s a start. 

He wraps his arms around Ahsoka a little tighter and shuts his eyes. 

The first time he’d tried to meditate, he’d accidentally fallen asleep, much to General Kenobi’s amusement. 

_“No need to be ashamed, Captain. We’re all exhausted,”_ he’d said when Rex has sputtered apologies. _“To this day, Anakin still falls asleep during his meditations,”_

Rex’s heart twists painfully at the memory of Anakin Skywalker. 

_We all loved you, General._

General Kenobi had been patient with Rex, letting him staying in the Room of a Thousand Fountains for as long as he liked and sat with him, ever patient, until the meditation came.

It was almost magical, reaching out into the Force like that. It might have only been possible to feel it in the sacred Room of a Thousand Fountains, but Rex is still grateful for the opportunity to have touched it, to have reached out into it and felt accepted by it.

Gods don’t listen to clones, but the Force transcends even gods. All life is accepted in the Force, even life fabricated in a laboratory. 

Rex prays for peace. He prays for understanding. He prays to know how to help the three stolen Jedi they’ve carried with them.

Rex reaches out into the Force. He feels the tips of his fingers graze against the omnipotence of the Force and allows his mind to wander (as General Kenobi has taught him) but his mind wanders too far. He falls away, just short of the Force he so longed to feel again, torn about by his traitorous thoughts. 

He thinks about Obi-Wan. He wonders if Cody gunned him down on Utapau. He wonders if Cody is even still _alive._

His stomach twists as he thinks of his brother: Cody loved his General. Rex squeezes his eyes shut and prays to the Force that Cody had died on Utapua before the order had been given. 

It would have been far more merciful that way. 

_[Can a lifetime of good be overwritten by a single wrong action, a lowly mistake? Does the past forever mar the future?]_

He thinks of Bly and General Secura; Wolffe and General Plo. 

He wonders if Lord Vader will ever turn off the chips, or if his brothers will be mindless slaves forever?

Distantly, horribly, he wonders how many of his brother would swallow their blasters if they were ever allowed to realized what they had done. 

Cody would. 

The thought drives Rex to his feet and his eyes snap open, desperate to shut his thoughts off. Ahsoka, in his arms, grunts softly, clearly unhappy about the movement. 

For a moment, Rex is dizzy and lost. The whole room seems to spin. He can’t get the image of Cody—blaster in his mouth—out of his head. 

Was this really their fate?

Was their only purpose in life to die—either at the hands of their enemies, or by their own blasters? 

Sure, they had always been less than people, but were they all really worth so little that their only fitting death was suicide?

Rex’s only consolation is knowing that not all of the Jedi are dead, that he and Kix managed to save two of them—though the third boy won’t make it through the night. 

That was Rex’s fault. If he’d been there sooner, he could’ve saved the kid. 

Maybe he could’ve saved General Billaba, too. 

He can feel the grief coming off of Caleb in waves—it’s practically tangible. 

He’s probably tearing himself up, and Rex can’t allow that—the kid is too good for that. So he sits beside boy, which seems to draw his attention away from whatever cruel internal monologue is rolling around inside of his head. 

“How are you holding up?” Rex asks, not because it’s going to fix anything, but simply because it’s customary. 

Caleb swallows thickly. His eyes are red-rimmed but no tears fell. Rex places a hand on his back, confident that Master Depa would have been proud of her padawan for his strength.

“She lied to me,” Caleb chokes out, his bottom lip wavering traitorous. He tucks his hands between his legs and catches his breath, straightening up and trying to grapple with his grief. “She’s never lied to me before. Why... why now?”

Rex doesn’t have the heart to tell him that everybody lies, that’s just the sort of galaxy they live in. 

Caleb is only fourteen. He will learn that painful lesson in time. For now, he is just a boy struggling under a weight he is too young to carry and Rex will not burden him further. 

He stands up and kneels in front of the young man, one hand still secured around Ahsoka, the other reaching to take Caleb’s. 

“Because she loved you,” he says. 

Caleb pitches forward and begins to cry helplessly, wracked by forbidden grief for a woman who had loved him unconditionally. 

“Why did you betray us?” Caleb chokes out and Rex, ashamed, is tempted to withdraw, but he knows the accusation is not directed at him. 

The question is not an accusation at all—it is a plea, begging for help to understand a narrative that doesn’t make sense. 

The clones had been their friends. 

Still, Rex can’t deny the way his throat seems to close up and the whole room pitches to one side. 

“We didn’t want to,” he grinds out, squeezing his eyes shut to ignore the way his voice cracks. “We didn’t have a choice. They put chips in our brains on Kamino. They had orders and we had to follow them. We didn’t have a choice,” His mouth is dry and he hates himself for no reason in particular. Maybe Kix can explain it better. 

“But you didn’t follow your orders?” Caleb asks and Rex swallows. 

“I was never a very good soldier, I suppose,” 

Caleb pulling his hand away and curls up, drawing his arms around himself and pulling his knees up to his chest. He’s thinking about his master again—Rex can tell from the expression on his face: he’s never seen anybody look so lost before. 

Rex rises once more and sits beside the boy, and the two sit in silence for a long time while Ahsoka rests. 

At some point, Kix comes in. He explains to Rex that he’s got the med droid programmed for the surgery. 

“You go first,” Rex says. 

Kix hesitates and crosses his arms. “As my superior-“ But Rex cuts him off. 

“We’re not soldiers anymore, Kix. You’re in pain. Get yourself taken care of first. I can hold out a little longer,”

Kix looks utterly lost and slowly nods. “Yes, sir,” he says and Rex sighs as the medic disappears. 

He has the funniest feeling that neither of them are going to make the transition into civilian life gracefully. 

Suddenly, the boy leans into Rex’s side, resting his head on Rex’s shoulder. At first, Rex stiffens. But when Caleb sniffles (still, he refuses to let the tears fall and Rex feels an inexplicable surge of _pride_ because how can a boy so young be so _brave_ in the face of such devastation?) he carefully puts an arm around Caleb’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” Caleb whispers hoarsely. “ _Thank you,”_

Rex merely nods and ignores the way his stomach twists as the question arises once more: what is he going to do with these Jedi?

They stay like that for a long time. Eventually, Rex closes his eyes but can’t find it within him to drift off. He can feel tension rising in Caleb, like there’s something he wants to ask but can bring himself to voice. It isn’t until he gives the padawan’s shoulder a gentle squeeze that the boy finally sits up and begins to speak. 

“Is Cal going to be alright?” he asks, his eyes nervously darting towards the closed door of the little medbay. 

“Is that his name?” Rex asks. 

Caleb seems to shrink in on himself, as if he things he’s said something wrong. “Cal Kestis,” he affirms. “We... we grew up together. He wasn’t in my Clan but he almost was. He’s my friend. He’s only- he’s only been a padawan for a couple of months,” he explains, speaking too fast. 

Rex’s heart plummets. He’s had this conversation so many times before: _vode_ , usually shinies, asking about their dying batchmates. 

_“How is he? Is he gonna be alright, sir?”_

No. 

They’re never alright. Nobody ever is. 

“You’re brothers,” Rex observes. For a moment, Caleb looks confused but seems to understand. 

Brothers by creed. 

Brothers because nobody else is left. 

“We are,” he affirms and Rex offers a low chuckle—he’s diverting, not ready to answer the question that’s been asked. 

“Cal’s a good name,” he says. “It’s far better than the banthakark Kix and I came up with,”

Caleb’s eyes light up—he’s so ready to be distracted by something, anything. “Oh?” 

“ _Part’oyay_ ,” he said and now Caleb smiles.

Rex’s heart soars: he never thought he’d see anybody smile ever again. 

“That’s a terrible name,” Caleb says and Rex, not really to let the mood drop, rolls his eyes. 

“Kix said the same thing. There’s a gift to naming, I think, and neither of you have It. I thought it was a good name,” 

Caleb chuckles, weary and exhausted, but a chuckle nonetheless. 

Unfortunately, the chuckle dies out into a long, drawn silence. Rex sighs heavily, knowing that the answer can’t be avoided forever. For a moment, he’s tempted to lie to the boy, to ease to pain if only for a moment, but he gets the idea that Caleb won’t take being lied to very well. 

“No,” Rex says simply. “Kix is doing his best, but we don’t think he’s going to last much longer,” 

Caleb sags. “Oh,” is all he said, as if he no longer has the energy to grieve, as if there’s nothing left inside of him to give. 

Rex understands the feeling.

It’s then that Ahsoka’s face twists up in tiny anger, and one of her eyes cracks open. 

“You’re too loud,” she complains grumpily, as if the whole situation was nothing more than a fun little sleepover. 

“Oh, I’m sorry, did we wake you?” Rex asks, halfway between teasing and sass. He can’t help himself: her complain is so _reasonable,_ so _normal_ that for a moment, he forgets the situation in its entirety. She sounds like Fives: whining because everybody was getting up and making too much noise and he wanted to sleep in just a second longer. 

Ahsoka puffs out her cheeks in exasperation and pushes herself upright, curling up against Rex’s chest. It immediately becomes clear that, despite her small size, she has an unlimited pool of sass to tap into when she responds with a curt, “I don’t hafta get up until the sun is all the way up and it’s still dark out,” 

She latches onto Rex with a vice like grip and carefully twists herself around, trying to get a gander at her surroundings. The shock seems to have faded, this is the most coherent Rex has ever seen her. 

Her big blue eyes fix on Caleb and Rex watches, with some amusement, as the exhausted padawan squirms under her sharp gaze. 

Abruptly, she pushes away from Rex and wiggling out of his lap, completely disregarding his protests of pain when her bony knees dig into his thigh as she carefully climbs down onto the floor. Then, she trots over to Caleb and scrabbles up onto _his_ lap, once again ignoring the grunts of pain as she gets up onto her knees and her sharp joints dig into him. 

She reminds Rex of a dog: her spatial awareness and physical coordinate is somewhat lacking and she doesn’t quite understand that she’s a lot bigger and heavier than she thinks she is. She’s going to have to learn that she can’t just go climbing all over everyone and everything she wants to. 

Rex makes a mental note of this and files it away for later. His job was to work with soldiers, not children. He knows very little about childcare. 

He makes a second mental note to pick up a book on the subject. 

Ahsoka’s eyes have fixed on Caleb’s long padawan braid. She reaches out and grasps it in her uncoordinated little hand, and gives it a sharp tug, as if she’s not totally aware that is actually attached to his head. 

“Ow! Hey... don’t do that, that’s mean,” Caleb scolds gently and pries her fingers off of his braid protectively. 

She cocks her head to the side (and once again Rex is reminded of a dog) and she narrows her eyes, taking in the lesson and filing it away: pulling on padawan braids is mean. 

“You’re a padawan!” She observes with no small amount of excitement. “I’m going to be a padawan too some day!” 

Tears gather in Caleb’s eyes and Rex slips his hands under the togruta’s armpits (which earns him a childish squeal and a fit of manic giggling) and lifts her back into his lap. 

The clone commander sighs heavily as the child giggles and squirms in his arms. 

She’s completely blocked the trauma, unwilling or unable to cope with the reality of watching everybody she’d ever know get hacked to bits by strange monsters in white armor and a raving lunatic with yellow eyes and a Jedi’s weapon. 

Rex can’t say he doesn’t blame her. 

Though he doesn’t let any tears fall, Ahsoka must sense Caleb’s distress in the Force because her immediately sits still and twists around in Rex’s lap to fix her big blue eyes on Caleb. “Why are you sad?” she asks with a gentleness and a compassion that Rex has thought no longer existed in the galaxy. 

Caleb manages a watery smile—Rex feels that pride surging through him once again—and pats Ahsoka on the head, being extra careful of her little montrals. “I’m not sad,” he says and Ahsoka frowns, once again puffing our her cheeks in distaste. 

She wiggles in Rex’s arms, trying to escape them once more, but Rex has a good hold on her. She twists around and scowls at Rex, pouting, and reaches out for Caleb making ‘grabby hands’, as if trying to convey her desires non-verbally. 

Caleb opens his arms. _It’s okay._ The gesture says and Rex relents, carefully setting Ahsoka in Caleb’s lap. 

She stands on Caleb’s thighs (which really can’t be comfortable for Caleb, and Rex adds a little asterisk next to the mental note about teaching the kid not to climb on things) and puts her little hands on his shoulders and tells him, with every ounce of seriousness and intensity that she had seen in her crèche master when he had reprimanded her for the same thing only a week prior: 

“Lying is not the Jedi way,” 

Then, after a moment of thought (perhaps coming to the realization that Caleb outranks her and she needs to respect him) she tacks on a sheepish “...mister,” to the end of her statement. 

Caleb’s breathing hitches. 

The intensity of his grief is so I tense that even Rex can feel it. 

Ahsoka seems shaken to her very core. She doesn’t understand why Caleb is so upset but instantly, she wraps her little arms around his neck and hold onto him. Caleb returns the gesture, holding the child in his arms as if he believes she’ll disappears if he lets go. 

Rex and Caleb are alone. With the exception of Kix and Ahsoka (and Cal for the time being) they are, to their knowledge, the very last of their people. 

Caleb is shaking again, all in an effort to not cry and _be a good Jedi._

He wants to make his master proud. 

But Rex decides that enough is enough. Caleb cannot got bottling up his grief forever. So, pushing side his own inhibitions, he carefully wraps his arms around both children and tucked Caleb’s head beneath his chin. 

“You know,” he whispers. “In a situation like this, I think it’s okay to cry,” 

That’s all it takes for Caleb’s walls to come tumbling down. His face contorts in agony and his whole body shakes, wracked with silent sobs. 

The child won’t let himself be heard. 

Rex’s heart aches. He reminds him far too much of his _vode—_ all too proud to cry out loud.

This boy is far to young to carry that sort of strength and resolve. 

They all were. 

Rex bows his head and allows himself to grieve with the boy. 

There is a grief and a loneliness that radiates off the both of them that Ahsoka cannot understand. She doesn’t yet realize _why_ they’re both so lonely, and, for now, she doesn’t need to. She does, however, know what it’s like to feel lonely, and she knows how to fix it. 

She reaches out into the Force and finds their signatures—both mangled and knotted up with grief. She reaches out towards them, both of them, and extends her arms to them, offers them comfort and _love, love, love, love, love_. 

She is young and has so much of it to offer. 

They accept her offer, Rex unknowingly and Caleb somewhat blinded by grief and desperate for some sort of connection, and a new bond is formed, binding the three of them in the Force. 

_[What determines whether a man is good or bad?]_

Rex is unsure if he knows the answer. He has done things that he believes are unforgivable. He cannot change the past. He cannot restore the lives he has taken. 

He can, however, protect the he has _saved._

The Mandalorians believed, as part of their creed, that a warrior who found a child was duty-bound to either reunite them with their people or raise them until they were of age. 

Rex is not a Mandalorian. His blood may be Mandalorian but he is, first and foremost, a Clone. Their culture is not his, he will not pretend it to be.

But his creed, his code, his honor is in protecting Jedi. That is the Code of the Clone. He was created to fill that purpose. He will do what he must. That is the way. 

Rex pulls the two kids closer and swears on the Force, on his Honor as a Clone, on the Creed of the Mandalorians, that he will protect his Jedi. 

Rex comes to the conclusion that he is not a good man. 

But he will strive to be better. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rex's internet search history be like: 
> 
> help I accidentally adopted a jedi  
> what to do if you adopt a jedi youngling  
> childcare  
> what do children need to live  
> how do i tell my medic/grumpy friend that i adopted children


	4. The Innocent and the Beautiful Have No Enemy But Time

_It was a known world then._  
_We live in it, we made it_  
_with our voices. Somewhere,_  
_though we did not know where,_  
_there would be islands_  
_in which the temperate sun_  
_allowed for daylong swimming._  
_In a perfect world like ours_  
_perfect things were probable._  
_The islands of peace, of course._  
_We all believed in them._  
  
_Meanwhile, we walked a world_  
_sound to its very core._  
_Who could have known_  
_its crust so thin that men_  
_would burn it dry, shatter it?_  
_We could not imagine_  
_our days were counted._  
  
_I have not found the islands_  
_of the blest, islands of peace;_  
_but would believe in them,_  
_would search for them, would_  
_keep them floating_  
_with my breath._

\- "Islands of Peace" by Leslie Norris

* * *

Everything will kill.

Everything will poison.

_Everything you love, we came to bury._

Rex cannot bring himself to hate Anakin Skywalker

The galaxy has always been a dangerous place, nothing has changed since the genocide of the Jedi. People are selfish; dangerous; destructive; unpredictable; _violent._ People do bad things. People are cruel. This fact is universal.

The universe is a predictable place. It is governed, as all universes are, by a strict set of rules: Neither matter nor energy can be created or destroyed; For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction; An object at rest will stay at rest; Entropy always increases; Where there are people, there will always be suffering.

Nobody is good. Nobody is evil. Mortal morality is not a constant: it differs across races and cultures and societies and civilizations. For all its absolutes, the universe is built on shades of grey.

Years ago—maybe lifetimes, maybe eons—the distinction between _right_ and _wrong_ was simple.

Slick, for example, was a _bad person._ He’d betrayed his _jetti,_ his _vode._ He was a traitor, guilty of treason, guilty of betraying the Republic. What Slick had done was unforgivable. Casting judgement on Slick was simple; Rex couldn’t understand what would cause somebody to abandon everything they had believed in.

Unfortunately, nothing ever stays simple forever.

Cut Lawquane was supposed to be a bad person. He was a deserter. He had abandoned his brothers. That was supposed to be wrong. Cut Lawquane was supposed to be a bad person, but he wasn’t. Still, Rex couldn’t understand what would cause somebody to abandon everything they had believed in.

Then, Umbara happened.

Then, Rex understood _exactly_ what could cause somebody to abandon everything they had believed in.

Anakin Skywalker is a murderer. He is guilty of genocide, of killing and enslaving everybody Rex has ever loved. Rex ought to hate him.

He doesn’t.

_(Anakin Skywalker was the first person to ever treat Rex like a real person.)_

When the medical droid, under Kix’s supervision, puts Rex under to remove the chip, all the clone commander can think about is Anakin Skywalker. He closes his eyes and the last thing he sees is a pair of sickly yellow eyes, leering at him from beyond the shifting darkness.

When Rex awakens, he doesn’t speak—not for hours and hours and hours. All he does is stare at the corner where the last pieces of his armor lay abandoned. The sight ought to make him sick. In Mandalorian culture, armor is to be treated with the utmost respect. After battle, the armor was to be meticulously cleaned and reverently stowed away. It was tradition Jango Fett had taught the CC class clones and they had, in turn, passed it on to their younger brothers.

Rex’s armor is not worthy of such reverence.

Eventually, he picks himself up and drags himself to the corner where he carefully turns over each piece of armor, hiding the blue paint against the ground. Rex can’t stomach looking at the color any longer. What once had been a symbol of hope across the galaxy had become nothing more than an effigy of entropy.

_We all loved you, general._

Even now, he cannot bring himself to hate Anakin Skywalker.

_Why?_ A voice calls out across the Force. It sounds remarkably like Cody’s and Rex fears he might vomit. _What has he done to deserve such loyalty?_

“He was kind to me,” Rex answers to nobody, choking on tears that refuse to fall, breaths that come in too short and too shallow.

Everything you love grows feral.

The whole world will kill you.

There is no safety in the galaxy, but this is nothing new. The galaxy has always been a dangerous place; it was dangerous long before the Jedi and will continue to be dangerous long after.

Perhaps the only safety in the galaxy is to be found floating aimlessly in the vast emptiness between the stars. Aboard their little starship, Rex’s family is safe.

Unfortunately, the universe is a predictable place. Entropy always increases. Nothing can stay safe or peaceful forever. As much as Rex would like to remain aboard the ship, forever falling through the cracks between pinpricks of ancient light, it simply isn’t possible. They can’t survive there forever. They need to eat.

Rex isn’t hungry. He might never feel hungry again, his stomach too twisted up with grief. Ahsoka, however, is _very_ hungry, and she lets them know by crying. Loudly.

Force above, how can something so _small_ scream so _loudly_?

Rex stares at the child with eyes that are wide and unsure and almost frightened. Is she hurt? Is she in pain? He wants to reach for her, to hold her, to comfort her. The desire to do so is instinctual, perhaps a remnant of his Mandalorian blood. However, he resists this urge, afraid that if he touches her, he’ll hurt her; afraid that if he gets too close, he’ll get attached.

And everything in this galaxy is so damn _finite_ , that he doesn’t know if he can trust in attachment, if he can allow himself to hope for a better tomorrow.

So, instead, he opens his arms and turns up his palms. His gesture is universal: ‘what the hell am I supposed to do?’ And Caleb rolls his eyes affectionately, as if the situation were, somehow, amusing to him.

The padawan had loved his clones dearly.

_Vode an—_ brothers all.

Rex understands the sentiment. Skywalker had been his brother, once.

It must be nice, the clone thinks, to have some semblance of normalcy, to have those lingering threads of familiarity.

“How do I turn it off?” Rex demands, his tone halfway between an order and a joke as he gestured vaguely to the tantruming Togruta.

“They didn’t teach you childcare on Kamino?” Caleb asks and Rex feels the impossible urge to smack the padawan upside the head for his sass. In a distant, painful way, he reminds Rex of Fives. That thought only makes to instinct to smack grow stronger—a smack to the back of the head was the only way to get Fives to behave.

Caleb gathers the little Togruta up in his arms and looks at Rex expectantly. It’s then that Rex realizes the kid was being entirely genuine in his questioning.

“Uh, no. That’s not something we- we weren’t expected to know how to care for children,” Rex stammers, scratching the back of his neck absentmindedly.

Ahsoka continues to wail and presses her slobbery face against Caleb’s bare neck and the padawan does his very best not to scrunch up his face in disgust.

“Really?” he asks incredulously. “As initiates, we learned all about caring for kids and babies. They always said it was a lesson in patience and humility but I think they just wanted us to be ready in case somebody handed us a baby and disappeared,” he explains.

Rex’s eyes go wide, his brows skirting up all the way into his hairline. The expression says more than Caleb needs to hear and he laughs. “Nobody’s ever handed you a baby before?”

For the life of him, Rex can’t tell if the kid’s being serious or sarcastic and he sputters. “No! Of course not!”

“It happens to Jedi all the time,” Caleb says with a listless shrug, readjusting his hold on the sobbing Jedi youngling.

“Well, you give them back, right?”

Caleb’s eyes skitter to the ground and his cheeks turn pink. Rex has the funniest feeling that the forthcoming answer is going to be... less than savory.

“Not usually. They don’t usually stick around. They just sort of... hand you the kid and take off,” Caleb says simply, as if the act of surrendering a child to a magical space paladin was no less commonplace than, say, stopping by the marketplace to pick up milk and beans.

“Karking Jedi,” Rex exclaims in exasperation with a heavy shake of his head.

Caleb’s face is bright red. “It’s not _our_ fault,” he fires back and Rex laughs, ruffling the top of the boy’s head, mussing up his hair.

For a moment, Rex’s heart soars. Even in the wake of such devastation, there was still hope: he wasn’t alone. None of them were. Maybe they would never recover from the scars of Order 66, but they could move on. And, who knows? Maybe their new life together wouldn’t be so bad.

Unfortunately, the mood sours as a fresh wave of grief rolls off the boy. He holds Ahsoka a little tighter and whispers to nobody in particular: “Master Depa always liked kids. She always wanted to spend time in the crèche teaching lessons,”

Then, his face begins to crack and the bleeding light seeps through as tears gather in his eyes. “We were assigned to take the next batch of initiates to Ilum for their crystals,”

It suddenly occurred to Rex that from this point forward, the galaxy will forever be without Jedi. No more lightsabers. No more meditation. No more getting hurtled off of cliffs with the Force. No more retrieving lost cloaks. No more drinking terrible, terrible tea with Cody and General Kenobi. No more _jetti._ No more _vode_.

An entire culture wiped off the face of the galaxy in less than a day.

Things would be okay. Rex is growing more and more certain of this with every passing second. However, to recover, they will need _time._

Caleb especially.

Carefully, Rex scoops the tiny Togruta out of Caleb’s arms. “What do you need, little ‘un?” he asks the child ever so gently as he lays a heavy hand across her back.

“My tummy hurts!” the child wails, effectively shattering Rex’s eardrums.

“She’s hungry,” Caleb must’ve seen the look of complete and utter panic and confusion that had crossed Rex’s face, because his clarification came at just the right time.

“What is all the racket!” Kix demands gruffly, trying to hide the concern in his voice as he sticks his head out from the cockpit.

“She’s hungry!” Rex and Caleb say together, though there’s certainly more vehemence and irritation in the Rex’s voice than in Caleb’s.

Kix rolls his eyes, but his expression softens. “There aren’t any supplies on the ship. We’re approaching a mid-Rim system but it still might be a risky place to stop and refuel,” he explains and reaches for the sobbing child in Rex’s arms.

Rex, however, twists away, scowling at his brother because he knows _damn well_ that Kix has no more knowledge on comforting children than Rex does, and he’ll be damned before he lets somebody take away his tiny Jedi.

“Do we have any other choice?” Rex barks and Kix, once again, rolls his eyes.

“I’m hungry...” Ahsoka repeats, twisting around to stare at Kix with the biggest, saddest eyes he’s ever seen.

Kix merely huffs in response, actively resisting the urge to coo. “Sith hells, how does she do that with her eyes? Do they inflate?” he asks.

Rex, meanwhile, finally gives into his _own_ “parental urges” and smacks Kix right in the back of the head.

“Watch your language, _vod_ ,” he chastises. “There are _little ears_ in the room,” Rex drapes his free hand over the side of Ahsoka’s head (about where her ears would’ve been if she’d been human) and scowls at the medic. This earns him a hiccuping little giggle from the tear-stained Togruta, and both clones grin. (Rex, at the very least, has the dignity not to coo. Kix does not.)

“Actually Togruta don’t have ears,” Caleb blurts out, looking so tense, he’s practically vibrating. It’s as if he _physically cannot_ prevent himself from sharing everything he knows. “She’s got these things called montrals—the little horns on her head—and they’re hollow and she can hear out of them and she can do echolocation,” he explains, all in one breath.

Kix’s smile turn affectionate and he digs his elbow into Rex’s ribs. “Reminds me of Echo,” he muses. “Or Hardcase,”

Rex’s heart twists and he returns the smile with one of his own, actively trying to ignore how utterly gutted he feels. “Yeah, Hardcase never could shut up, could he?”

“A real know-it-all,” Kix whispered. “Echo, too,”

The medic swallows thickly and crosses over to where Caleb is actively trying to hide his face behind the _enormous_ sleeves of his cloak. “Rex is right,” Kix acquiesces, putting his hands on Caleb’s shoulders. “Come on, kid. Why don’t you help me land this old rust-bucket?” he suggests and Caleb nods eagerly, happy to be useful, even for just a moment.

Pride surges through Rex’s heart with the force of a collapsing dam.

_Vode an._

Brothers all.

\- - - 

They touch down on a little moon called Iludea It’s a tiny place, mostly devoid of civilization save for a handful of cities nearest the equator. Beyond that is nothing but a smattering of farming villages, miles and miles of orchards, and vast, expansive fields of grain. It’s small enough and backwater enough that it’s relatively far removed from the war. Much to the clones’ relief, they’re very unlikely to find trouble.

They land at a fueling depot in one of the smaller cities. Kix stays behind to refuel the ship and to watch over Cal while Rex, Caleb and Ahsoka head off towards the nearest market. Initially, Rex had attempted to leave the squirming, sobbing toddler behind with Kix, but Ahsoka refused. Adamantly.

Now, her crying has grown soft (she’s nearly exhausted herself) and she rests her head against his shoulder, her arms dangling loosing at her side. Caleb is close enough by that she has his padawan braid clutched tightly in her little fist and refuses to let go.

Caleb is effectively leashed.

They make their way towards the city in relative silence, all except for Ahsoka’s occasional fussing. It’s during this time that Rex begins to feel... _things_.

It starts off as mild irritation. He feels himself growing grumpy and frustrated, with no real reason behind it. The irritation quickly morphs into something much deeper—a hopelessness that nearly swallows him whole. He feels like he’s drowning. He wants to cry.

His legs weigh heavily and he slows his pace. He feels as if every step he takes is arduous. At some point, he nearly stops and opens his mouth, nearly ready to suggest that they turn back.

It’s then that a sharp pain tears across his stomach so violently, he nearly doubled over. The nausea follows immediately afterwards.

Little gods, he’s going to vomit.

“Are you alright?” Caleb asks softly and Rex realizes that he must feel the same way because he’s clutching at his middle and his skin is so pale, it’s practically _green_.

And Rex understands almost _instantly._

He chuckles lowly and brings up his mental shields (a trick he learned at Kamino to prevent Force-users from getting into his head.) He rests his chin against Ahsoka’s head and pleads: “You have to stop _projecting_ , little ‘un. You’re making us sick,”

Rex is no stranger to Force Projection. General Skywalker used to do it all the time, particularly when he was upset.

Whatever the hell Ahsoka’s doing, however, is a whole new level.

Rex can sympathize with her—hunger pains are miserable. He doubts she’s ever gone this long without food before, this is likely her first time experiencing them. No wonder she’s so miserable—she’s grumpy and her blood sugar’s low and she’s in _pain._ She’s right at that age where she can’t yet distinguish between a _need_ and a _want._ She need to eat and she needs to eat _right now_ because she’s in pain and she’s dying.

“No ‘m not! Not projecting!” Ahsoka protests vehemently and Caleb’s head snaps up so fast, he nearly breaks his neck.

“You can feel it too?” His eyes are as wide as saucers and he’s so startled that he jerks away, pulling the braid right out of Ahsoka’s hand.

Ahsoka protests this by shrieking.

Frustrated and overcome by a new wave of emotion, curtesy of the shrieking toddler, Rex moves Ahsoka to his other arm, bouncing her until the crying stops.

“It’s alright, you’re okay. Just a little longer,” he soothes, feeling completely lost. Then, he fixes his gaze on Caleb. “Yes, I can feel it. What the hell do you mean by that?”

Oops, he hasn’t meant to snap. Caleb cringes away.

Rex drops his head. “I apologize, sir,” The formality falls from his lips of its own accord. “Caleb.” He corrects with a wince of his own.

The padawan relaxes and strides closer, holding out his braid for Ahsoka to grasp. She refuses it with a defiant, “No!” and buries her face (which is decidedly cold and slimy and wet with tears and snot) against Rex’s neck.

“Little one, please,” Rex pleads, running his hand up and down the length of her back. The hopelessness is returning, along with an exhaustion that seeps into his very bones.

Then, suddenly, it’s gone. It happens so quickly that Rex can almost feel the air as it rushes to fill up the new void in his mind where Ahsoka’s projected emotions had been pressing.

Caleb is blushing again, though he tries to keep an air of dignity, by keeping his back ramrod straight and his arms crossed. He fails, however, not to squirm under the commander’s hard stare.

“You did that, I assume?” Rex asks, lifting an eyebrow.

“It’s just mental shielding. I, uh, helped block her out for you. I can teach you how, if you want,” Caleb explains, swallowing thickly.

This offer is followed by a wave of comfort so forceful, it nearly knocks the air right out of his lungs. Ahsoka must’ve felt it too, because her crying trickles down to a low whimper, and Rex holds her a little closer.

“I’m sorry,” Caleb says with a wince. “That was only supposed to be for her,” Rex’s reaction seems to confirm whatever theory has been rolling around inside of Caleb’s head, because he sighs heavily and closes his eyes. “I-I... I should’ve told you,” He doesn’t sound particularly afraid, just defeated. “This morning—earlier—when we were talking—she must’ve- I’m so sorry, Commander. I should’ve told you. I didn’t think that you- I didn’t know it was possible-“

“Just spit it out, kid,” Rex urges and rolls his eyes, though his tone remains affectionate: he’s not here to condemn.

“She bonded to me. Uh- to us. That’s why- why you can feel all of those...” Caleb squeezes his eyes shut, torn between wanting to explain and wanting to forget about the Force, about the Jedi, about the pain. “Do you know what a Force Bond is?”

Rex’s stomach drops. He does. Of course he does. Back on Kamino, the Long-Necks had described it sparing no clinical, sterile detail. Nevertheless, Rex persists. “No,” he says.

Caleb also spares no details when describing it to Rex, but the way he describes it is different, reverent. As if the Force weren’t an abstract thing, but something piquant and tactile.

_And it was, once, in the Room of a Thousand Fountains._

What a wonderful thing it must be, to be tied to somebody else, connected by Light and energy. Nobody would ever feel lonely, ever again.

Caleb doesn’t seem so sure about it, however.

“This isn’t allowed,” he explains, picking at the sleeves of his cloak. “Bonds are only supposed to be forged between masters and apprentices for the purpose of training,” he says.

What a horrible, lonely world, the Jedi must’ve lived in.

Distantly, Rex is aware of Caleb in his head—there’s a Light, a presence, an energy where there had previously been empty space.

Ahsoka is there, too. Her presence is stronger than Calebs—that’s because she hasn’t learn about mental shielding, yet, Caleb explains.

Rex is no Jedi. He doesn’t pretend to understand the ways of the Force and he has no intention of learning. That’s a Jedi thing, after all. He doesn’t want to meddle. He does, however, make a mental note to study Force Bonds, to figure out how to initiate them, if only for the sake of reaching out to Kix.

Kix is lonely too. If nothing else, maybe they could share this one thing, and be a little less lonely together.

He can feel Caleb’s energy receding, wracked with indecision and swathed in a blanket of emotion that he immediately recognizes as shame.

The poor kid is so torn between his desires to _not be alone_ and his desperate wants to be a _good Jedi_.

Rex doesn’t have to hard to remind him that the Jedi don’t exist anymore.

Instead, he grabs Caleb by the wrist and pulls him close, dropping to his knees to better hold both of the Jedi younglings.

“I’m no snitch,” Rex assures. “I won’t tell a soul,”

\- - -

The market is a quiet place, despite how busy it is. People mill about in relative silence, speaking to each other only in whispered hums.

The trio of bedraggled warriors already stand out starkly against the throngs of Iludeans—stout people with maroon skin and white hair. Rex can feel so many pairs of eyes on him—he’s never felt so uncomfortable before. Ahsoka’s crying isn’t helping with the situation, it started up full force as soon as they got close enough to the vendor stalls to smell the food.

“Look, see? We’re here, it’s alright now. We can get whatever you want, what would you like to eat?” Rex appeases, growing more and more desperate for the tears to stop.

This, luckily, seems to get Ahsoka’s attention. She lifts her head from off of his shoulder and rubs her eyes with her fists before latching back onto shirt. Carefully, she twists around to examine her options.

None of the food looks particularly appetizing—most of it consisting of raw-looking meats that have been hanging out in the sun for hours and hours and hours. Rex begins to regret letting the child have free reign over her diet.

She sniffles softly and lets go of his shirt, choosing to wrap an arm around his neck instead. Then, she points to a particularly seedy looking stall and hiccups: “That one please,” before hiding her face against Rex’s shoulder once more.

Luckily, nothing in the stall _smells_ too bad, so Rex is willing to give it a try. Unfortunately, the menu is vast and Rex, who’s entire life has consisted of ration bars, greasy meals from Dex’s, and finger food from the 79’s, is feeling a little overwhelmed.

“What do you want, little ‘un?” he asks, and nudges her ever so slightly. Ahsoka only looks up long enough to make eye-contact with the stall vendor, before hiding her face once more.

“She’s shy,” Caleb clarifies and Rex doesn’t roll his eyes because that would be immature and, apparently, he’s a father or a big brother or _something_ now, and he needs to set a good example.

Instead, Rex merely huffs in response and stares up at the menu, trying not to feel dwarfed by its enormity. Caleb must sense his growing panic across their bond, because he chuckles and pats Rex’s on the arm reassuringly. “Let me,” he offers.

The kid orders something relatively mild for Rex and something utterly raw and bloody (much to Rex’s great chagrin) for Ahsoka.

Togruta, apparently, are a carnivorous species.

This knowledge does nothing to comfort Rex as he watches his teeny tiny Jedi _tear into and hork down a slap of mystery meat._

She’s willing to walk on her own, after that (much to the relief of Rex’s arms) but remains adamant about holding hands with both Rex and Caleb at the same time. They indulge her more that they ought to, picking her up and swinging her between them, but the way she giggles and squeals makes it well worth it.

They’re a loud bunch, as they gather their supplies: Ahsoka giggles and Caleb goes on and on about the Ilucean people and their culture and how it relates to the peoples cultures of the other planets in the star system. Rex, however, doesn’t say much. He finds that he doesn’t need to. He’s perfectly connected just to listen.

Some people believe that the universe can sing. The Song of the Spheres, they called it.

Rex used to believe in the Song of the Song.

He used to lay awake at night beneath the half-formed light of creations-without-end and space-without-limits and pretend like he was somebody important enough for the universe to sing to.

There was a time, after Umbara, after Zyggeria, after Fives, when he stopped believing in it. The Galaxy, he thought, is too cruel of a place.

_Everything will kill._

_Everything will poison._

_Everything you love grows feral._

Rex considers, as he returns back to his ship with a fully belly and an armload of food, that perhaps he was wrong.

Yes, he concedes, as he swings Ahsoka back and forth while Caleb practically gushes over the local flora and fauna, perhaps the universe is not such a cruel place.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

For infinite sorrow, there must also be infinite joy.

Ahsoka gasps loudly and releases both of their hands, tearing off after a beetle she saw on the pavement up ahead. She catches it swiftly and eats it without hesitation, while Rex shouts in horror and Caleb laughs.

_Yes, perhaps there will be kinder days ahead._


	5. This Is Where the Beautiful Doomed Come to Meet

_"Death, be not proud, though some have called thee_  
_Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;"_

\- "Death, Be Not Proud" by John Donne

* * *

Despite what pretty poets say, there is no meaning in Death. There is no point or moral to be found in It, there is no meaning. It claims without warning, without compassion, without solace.

Kix is a well-learned man and he is all too familiar with Death; they are old friends.

He has read stories crafted by authors who claimed that Death is symbolic, and have balanced its heavy weight against narrative themes.

He has read historical discourses on martyrs who are called heroes—their Deaths had been torches to light the flames of revolutions, sacrificing themselves for causes that may or may not be just, depending on time and perspective.

He has seen and studied cultures galaxy who see Death as a great an honorable thing. To die warrior’s death, Jango Fett had taught them before his death, is the highest honor any man could ever achieve.

All are incorrect.

He recalls holding a shiny, some kid called Picket who’d been so excited about getting his very first tattoo— _not until after the battle’s over,_ he’d said. _I’ve just gotta wait until after the battle- I won’t be shiny, then. It’ll mean something then._ On the battle field he took two shoots to the abdomen, stepping between General Skywalker and the gunfire. He’d gurgled up blood and described, in great detail, the tattoo he’d designed and what it had symbolized, even though they both knew he’d be dead in fifteen minutes.

Kix wouldn’t let them take the body away to be burned until after somebody came in an painstakingly needled in the stylized Loth cat on the kid’s bicep.

There was nothing symbolic in that kid’s death. There was no illusion to higher themes.

No author would write the story of a boy who’d spent his whole life training and waiting to fight, only to die twenty minutes into his battle.

Kix recalls cradling the shaking body of a 212th ARC Trooper while he died from shock—his legs had been blasted off when he stepped on the only landmine their sniffer-dogs failed to detect.

Token had been his name. He’d been learning the Twi’lek language in his free time, studying extensively from books, and audio recording, and the occasional lesson from General Kenobi—all because he wanted to open up a school or do public service or whatever on Ryloth after the war was over. He and Kix has been friends—they’d go drinking together and Token would talk politics and try to impress every Twi’lek woman he came across with his knowledge of their language, all while Kix laughed and drank and railed about philosophy.

A good friend, Token had been.

The very best.

And he died with his legs 8 meters away from his body, his intestines spread across Kix’s lap while the medic smoothed back his manically curly hair and promised that he’d be alright.

He died looking hollow and disappointed. “Never made it back to Ryloth...” he’d whispered as if struck by that sudden realization.

There was nothing noble in his death. It did nothing to inspire bravery in others, there was no moral, no higher purpose, no ensuing revolution.

He died accidentally, and even now the people of Ryloth are none the wiser to his good intentions.

Jango Fett used to claim that to ‘die in battle was the highest honor a warrior could receive’. There was no honor for the men left behind on Umbara, who were attacked and eaten by wild animals because their acting General decided that their lives meant so little that they weren’t worth waiting for.

Death is an ending, a stopper. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. For life to begin, it must also end. It is a natural thing, an important thing, and it’s only function is to give life meaning: Things are only beautiful because they are finite. Nothing would matter if it lasted forever.

Even stars die.

After refueling, Kix returns to the ship where he makes his way, first and foremost, to the med-bay to check on his dying patient. It’s no longer a matter of “if” anymore, it’s a matter of “when”. Despite Kix’s best efforts, Cal is going to die. He’s sure of it.

However, when he enters the medical lab, he’s rather surprised to find two hazy, dull green eyes fixed on his.

He’s so shocked by the sight that the cup of caf he’d been holding immediately slips from his fingers and clatters against the ground, forgotten.

Cal looks like he wants to flinch, but can’t do much more than blink sluggishly. Kix doesn’t blame him for his lethargy—there are enough painkillers coursing through his bloodstream to kill an eopie. The idea had been to keep the boy comfortable and pain-free in his final hours, he wasn’t supposed to wake up.

But there he is, high as a kite but undeniably awake.

Stumbling forward and narrowly avoiding the puddle of caf on the floor, Kix asks, in a rust of breath, “Shit, you’re awake! How do you feel?”

Rex would’ve slapped him for using such language around the kid, but Kix doesn’t care for three reasons:

  1. Rex isn’t here and can kiss his ass.
  2. The baby Jedi is probably so high he probably can’t distinguish between individual _sounds_ , let alone be able to decipher full words.
  3. While Kix Can appreciate Rex wanting to preserve their innocence, the Jedi kids (with the exception of Ahsoka) were all commanders. The thirteen-year-old boy laying on Kix’s cot has lead men into to battle; has watched men die horrific death; has taken lives. There is no innocence left to protect.



Cal doesn’t respond, obviously. There’s a thick plastic tube that’s shoved down his trachea and into his lungs—he can’t even breath on his own, speech is utterly impossible.

It’s a miracle that Cal’s even awake and Kix is immensely grateful for that gracious little kindness, sure, but it begs the question: is the boy even coherent? The head trauma he’d received was extensive—he wouldn’t be surprised if the poor padawan was just a vegetable, unable to do anything more than open and close his eyes.

Kix shudders at the thought.

He’s euthanized brothers before for the same reason—a life like that isn’t worth living, especially when the Republic tells them that their only purpose is for fighting, that any energy, any expense keeping them alive is wasted.

It doesn’t matter much anymore, though, Kix decides.

The Republic is dead.

Banishing all unwanted thoughts from his head, he steps towards to broken padawan to check for vitals, and nearly screams when the boy jerks away violently, his heart rate and blood pressure skyrocketing in panic.

So, the kid’s not brain dead. That’s good news.

What’s more is that he’s coherent enough that he can recognize Kix. Or... at least, he can recognize that Kix is a Clone.

Unfortunately, he’s utterly and absolutely terrified of Kix and he has good reason to be: the last clone he’d come across tried to beat him to death with his helmet. That’s bound to leave an unsavory taste in anyone’s mouth.

Kix curses again and lurches backwards, rummaging around the cabinets until he finds a sedative. He wasted no time in injecting the medicine into the IV, and slowly, Cal’s heart rate slows and his eyes drop.

\- - -

Three weeks pass. Despite the promise of recovery, Cal doesn’t awaken.

Three weeks pass and the galaxy is a very different place. Palpatine has claimed it as his own and Vader stands at the helm, ready and willing to utterly obliterate anyone who dares to defy the Empire.

The wounds left by the Siege of the Jedi Temple are still raw and weeping, but slowly, they are beginning to mend.

Cal is breathing on his own.

It ought to be impossible. That sort of damage and trauma doesn’t just go away. Nevertheless, his vital signs have stabilized and Kix has deemed it fit to remove the breathing tube.

He spends most of his time with Cal, searching waiting with bated breath for signs of healing, signs of life. It’s easier, Kix finds, isolating himself in the med-bay with the comatose kid.

It’s not that he doesn’t like Ahsoka or Caleb, but he doesn’t know if he can’t trust himself around them. The chip is gone, sure, but that does very little to comfort him.

_Good soldiers follow orders._

He’d attacked Rex. He was going to kill Caleb. It had taken all of his mental strength not to butcher Ahsoka when he’d first found her tucked away in the alcove.

_That’s the chip_. Rex had said. _That wasn’t you._

Then why does Kix feel so guilty?

Every time he looks at those Jedi, he feels like he’s going to be sick—like his skin is on fire and he want to bury himself in the deepest hole he can find and die there.

Rex is a good person. He fought against the chip successfully. Caleb and Ahsoka and Cal are alive because of _Rex_.

Kix is a bad person. Kix has done nothing to help anybody and he just want to die. The Jedi are _dead_ because of him. Sometimes, at night, he hears Caleb crying softly to himself and Kix wants to fling himself out of the airlock—Kix helped in killing the Jedi.

_Monster. Monster. Monster._

He’s sitting in the chair in med-bay when Rex comes sauntering in and proudly declares that he’s decided to keep the Jedi.

“Karking hells, you sound like Waxer,” Kix says, rolling his eyes and trying to squish away the rising panic and bile. He _can’t_ be around those kids. Not forever. It’ll kill him.

“What am I supposed to do, _vod_ , I can’t just let them fend for themselves,” Rex spits indignantly, frustrated with Kix’s lack of support.

“I’m not saying you ought to just abandon them, I just... you need to think things through!” Kix shouts, tossing his hands into the air.

Rex merely scowls. “I’ve put a great deal of thought into this decision, _Kix_ ,”

Kix, growing more and more frustrated, crosses his arms and grits his teeth. “Well, that’s that, then. Congratulations on your new family,” he grounds out and turns away, stalking off towards the door, as if he’s going to head out, but he stops and hesitates. Where will he go?

Rex catches his arm.

“What is going on, _vod?”_ Rex asks, his expression soft and fully of worry and concern that Kix doesn’t deserve.

Vehemently, Kix tries to snatch his hand away but ultimately fails, the commanders hold is too tight and the expression on his face says that he has no intention of letting go.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kix snaps.

Rex grits his teeth. “Don’t give me that banthakark,” His voice, still full of concern, carries authority to it.

Kix recoils and Rex finally relinquishes his hand, allowing Kix to skunk back over to his chair.

“You’re holding yourself up in here. When was the last time you ate? Hell, when was the last time you _slept_? You’re a medic, Kix! What, do you can get on all of our asses for not taking care of ourselves but you can’t be bothered to treat yourself the same way? You ought to know better than this!” Rex snaps and Kix almost wants to flinch. His face turns red with shame and he lowers his head into his hands.

Rex exhales heavily and lowers himself into the seat next to Kix. He’s silent for a long time, just watching Cal’s chest rise and fall.

“You’re all I’ve got left, _vod_... please, I can’t lose you too,” Rex’s voice is hardly above a whisper, and Kix knows he’s crossed a line with his self-isolation. Still, he offers no response and Rex takes the hint.

“We’ll... we’ll drop you off at the next fueling station,” Rex said, sounding as if all the energy has been completely sapped from him.

Kix’s head snaps up and his eyes fix on Rex’s. His expression is nothing short of utterly horrified. “What?” He asks.

“Kix, it’s no secret that you don’t want to be here, and I’m not going to force you to-“

The medic doubles over again, his hands grabbing at his hair and tugging violently. “No, no, no... it’s not- it’s not that,” he says, all in one breath as if he can’t get the words out fast enough. “I don’t want you to go, I don’t want to leave you, it’s not that, it’s just... Rex, I can’t. I can’t be here, not around them,”

His voice must’ve wavered, must’ve cracked, because Rex is beside him one again, just happy that he’s finally _talking._

Rex puts a general arm around his shoulder and the dam starts to break.

Kix curls against his former commander and exhales, slowly, shaking.

How old are they now? Ten? Eleven? Rex is probably closer to thirteen but that’s beside the point.

They’re children, too.

Just a bunch of children, forced into a war they didn’t want any business with, forced to grow up far too fast, and now they’ve lost everything and everyone.

Kix has never had a mother before, but he wishes he did. He’s desperate, in this moment of weakness, for that sort of affection and unconditional love.

How is it possible to feel so young and so old at the same time?

He’s seen too much, lived for too long.

Hevy, and Hardcase, and Waxer, and Fives... they all got it easy. Even Token and Picket—Kix is almost envious of them.

“I killed Jedi in the Temple,” Kix says at last, his voice hollow and numb. It sounds far away in his own ears, as if somebody else is speaking.

Rex’s arms tighten around him and Kix’s breathing hitches, tears trickling down his cheeks.

“Every time I look at Caleb or ‘Soka, I just... I can’t...” the words trail off and have find no end. Rex understands, though. Rex was always good at understanding.

“It wasn’t you, _vod_. Cmon, you know that,” Rex is gentle, as if Kix is some delicate, crystalline figurine But it couldn’t be further from the truth: Kix is hard and cold and empty and he’s afraid that nothing will ever be able to kill him.

He wants to snap, wants to last out, want to be angry, but there isn’t any point in it. So, instead, he leans into his brother’s arms and says, softly, “You’re a good man, Rex,”

“Not as good as you, Kix,” Rex returns, and his voice is almost stern.

Finally, unable to bare it any longer, Kix twists away. He doesn’t refute the statement, but it hangs in the air, unspoken.

_We both know that’s not true._

“Is it bad that I just want him to die already?” Kix admits half heartedly, gesturing up at the boy on the cot.

Rex has the decency to snort. “You used to say the same thing about Skywalker,”

“I should’ve killed Skywalker myself,” Kix’s voice turns hard, laced with a malice he can hardly reign in.

Rex, however, merely shrugs, unwilling to give into the anger. “There were a couple times I thought you would,” he admitted. “Like when he broke his leg and his from you for—how long was it?”

Kix exhales. He doesn’t want to smile at the memory, doesn’t want to let go of his anger. He can’t, however, deny the fondness of the memory. “Three days,” he says a ghost of a smile quirking after his lips. “He walked around on it so much that we had to operate on it. He wasn’t nearly as bad as Kenobi, though. I felt terrible for the hell poor Helix had to go through,”

They fall into a comfortable silence after that, and Kix closes his eyes, trying to push the memories away.

“If he dies, I can finally give up,” he admits after a long, long time, finally circling back to the original topic. “What other reason do I have to live for?” he snorts derisively.

Rex doesn’t say anything to that, but his distress is almost tangible: he doubles over and covers his face and Kix suddenly feels sick to his stomach with guilt.

“Rex?” Kix asks hesitantly, and the commander only sighs.

“Is that really what you think, Kix? Do you really believe that?” he asks and Kix’s heart drops to the pit of his stomach.

_You’re all I have left, vod._

“I don’t know,” is all Kix says, his throat dry and hoarse.

The commander sighs and gets up, looking older and wearier than Kix has ever seen him. He looks like he’s aged a thousand years in one conversation and it occurs to the medic, rather abruptly, how terribly lonely Rex must’ve felt while Kix locked himself away in his little pity party.

_You’re all I’ve got left, vod._

“Rex, wait,” Kix says, rising and reaching for Rex’s wrist. “Sit here and stay with me for a while?” he requests.

Rex looks hesitant but nods. “Of course,” he says and very slowly settles back into the chair.

They sit together in silence for nearly a half an hour before either party works up the courage to speak.

They talk softly, speaking of forbidden memories. They tell stories of their brothers, of their days on Kamino, of war, and of the Jedi.

They fall asleep like that, lounging in two chairs, smiling together for the first time since the Jedi went extinct.

Peace settles across the Force and, for the first time in weeks, Cal opens his eyes and awakens. 


	6. Hope Is the Dream of the Soul Awake

_"There is an island in the dark, a dreamt-of place_  
_where the muttering wind shifts over the white lawns_  
_and riffles the leaves of trees, the high trees_  
_that are streaked with gold and line the walkways there;_  
_and those already arrived are happy to be the silken_  
_remains of something they were but cannot recall;_

_There is an island_  
_in the dark and you will be there, I promise you, you_  
_shall be with me in paradise, in the single season of being,_  
_in the place of forever, you shall find yourself. And there_  
_the leaves will turn and never fall, there the wind_  
_will sing and be your voice as if for the first time."_

\- "The Seven Last Words" by Mark Strand

* * *

Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad.

Everything is bad. Everything is _pain_.

After weeks of floating on ice and snow, adrift on oceans made of light, Cal awakens and the world is on _fire_.

There is light and shadow and color and it is all too much for Cal’s eyes. He wants to lift his hands, to shield himself, but his hands won’t obey.

He feels as if his body wasn’t his own and it frightens him. His thoughts aren’t coherent, everything is too bright and too loud and too _much_ and it won’t stop.

His heart rate is climbing up up up—he can hear the beeping; he can taste the saline in his mouth; he doesn’t know where he is!—his skin feels like it’s on fire, he’s shaking—he doesn’t know where he is!

Then, there is a voice, soft and gentle, somebody with a name he can’t quite remember.

_Deep breaths, padawan._

If Cal could’ve moved, he would’ve reached out towards the voice, would’ve held it close. It’s comforting. It brings safety.

_Trust in the Force, my student._

Cal wants to whimper, to beg the voice to stay, to _be with him_ , but the sound bubbles up and catches halfway out of his ravaged throat and remains trapped. There is a heavy hand on his forehead, smoothing back his hair.

_You are safe here._

His eyes drift closed. The pain and the burning and the light slowly fade, easing down to a level that’s manageable.

_I am always with you, padawan. Don’t be afraid._

Who was that voice? Once upon a time, there had been a name attached to it. Somebody he had called _Master._

Master.

That’s a bad word. A bad, bad word.

It brings with it a deluge of unwanted thoughts and memories. Cal’s eyes snap open and all at once his head is filled with images and sounds and smells: blood and fire and screaming and burning. Smoke and ash fills his lungs—he can’t breathe!—

—something inside of his heart snaps as his he watcheshis master’s head get blown clean off, feels the blood spray across his face—

_MASTER!_

The word is wrong on his too heavy, too foreign tongue. It comes out malformed, bastardized. It mercilessly rakes past his vocal cords and comes out as nothing more than a useless puff of air.

The Force pushesout around him violently, a surge of panic and pain swelling within him and manifesting itself outwardly. He hears clattering as things are thrown against the wall, and a two startled yelps, followed by shouting in a language he is supposed to understand.

Suddenly, there are two figures looming over him, crowding into his space and their faces...

Cal feels his heart stop and his blood turn to ice.

This has happened before, once. This situation is familiar.

He remembers somebody standing over him, beating him. He remembers pain. He was screaming. He couldn’t get away. They were feral. Somebody was hurting him, somebody who shared their face.

“Cal, buddy, take a deep breath. You’re breathing to fast,”

The one with the blond hair is speaking. He puts a hand on Cal’s shoulder and Cal _screams._ The sound tears up past his too-dry throat, ripping through his chest like Wampa claws.

He’s going to die.

They’re doing to beat him, going to hurt him, going to bash his skull in until his brains oozed across the floor. They’re going to do to him what they had done to his master.

He doesn’t want to die.

“Kix, _do something_!”

The first man is yelling and pressing down on him and that _scares_ him because he doesn’t know _why_ they’re doing it. Are they going to torture him? It already hurts so badly, he isn’t sure how much more he can endure...

It’s too loud, it’s too much. The world shakes violently and pain explodes across every inch of his body. The pain is unlike anything he’s ever felt before, he feels like he’s going to burn up like a star gone nova.

Is this how stars feel when they die? He’d always thought those colors were so beautiful... it had never occurred to him that, perhaps, they were merely the end result of something horrible and agonizing.

_Master, if we win the battle could we, maybe, pass through the Nebula on the way back home? Just for a minute?_

“He’s seizing! Rex, hold him _down!”_

“What the hell do you think I’m doing here, Kix? Playing a rousing game of sabacc with him???”

“Just shut up and keep him steady! I can’t lose him!”

_I can’t lose him._

_I can’t lose him._

The words carry such weight across the Force, as if whole worlds are balanced precariously on their scripts.

Darkness bleeds into Cal’s vision. Near him, a machine screams.

Hot tears slide down his cheeks. In another life, he would’ve been ashamed of such a display of emotions.

Now, he is too frightened and in too much pain to care.

Something cold and sharp spread through the veins in Cal’s arm and a warmth spread through his chest and his vision dissolves into meaningless pinpricks of light, nothing more than stars in a vast, empty universe.

\- - -

It’s nearly two more days before Cal awakens again and, when he does, both soldiers are still standing at attention by his bedside.

It’s somewhat rude, but Cal can’t help but think that they both look terrible.

“You’re awake! I’m glad you’re okay,” the blond one says and steps forward.

Cal flinches away violently, afraid of suffering any more pain.

He feels _horror_ echo across the Force as the trooper recoils. The movement startles Cal further, who flinches again and squeezes his eyes shut, waiting for the barrage of blows to begin.

They never come.

Instead, the other trooper steps forward and takes the place of his brother.

“I bet you’re thirsty, aren’t you?” he asks gently and Cal doesn’t flinch so badly.

Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, beyond the towering pillars of ice and shadow, and the warped images of hazy figures, Cal recognizes the voice, recognizes the light that surrounds the man who is speaking.

This man was kind to him.

There is very little Cal can remember about the weeks he spent sleeping. He remembers floating, trapped in an empty void, trapped in the infinitude of space with nowhere to go. He remembers feeling tired and afraid, searching for a light to go into, seeking out a place of rest. He can remember calling out for his master, he remembers reaching out into the Force and feeling nothing but the sensation of sand slipping through his fingertips.

He had been afraid.

Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffer and, yes, he _knows_ this, but his fear had been valid, had been primal. He was afraid he’d been abandoned by the Force, that he’d be doomed to float in the cold, empty universe, alone, forgotten, forever—as punishment for not dying alongside his master.

But then, there had been the voice.

The voice spoke of many things.

The voice told him secrets he must never repeat: secrets of guilt and loathing and regret for a deed that hadn’t been his own.

The voice told him stories. The voice spoke of war and brothers. Once or twice, it told him fairytales made up on the spot.

On one, rare occasion, it sang to him: a lullaby in a language he couldn’t comprehend.

The voice was kind in other ways, too.

It took care of his body while he floated, listlessly among the stars. It turned him over, several times a day, to prevent sores and ulcers from developing on the spots where the pressure of his bones dug too deep against his skin. It worked his arms and legs to keep his muscles from atrophying, even though he was meant to be a _lost cause_.

The owner of the voice reaches behind Cal’s back and carefully lifts him upright. Though the padawan flinches at the movement, the clone is unperturbed, cramming soft pillows behind his back to keep him propped upright. Carefully, the Clone lifts one of Cal’s hands and gently presses a cool glass of water against his palm, encouraging the fingers to wrap around it. It weighs much more than Cal anticipates and he recoils, but the clone’s hand remains firm around his own.

“See, you’ve got it,” the voice assures. “Don’t worry, we’ll get your strength back up. But for now, I’ll help you,”

The glass is lifted to Cal’s mouth and as soon as he feels the cool liquid touch his lips, his body reacts violently and he surges forward, trying to drink the water as fast as he can.

“Hey, hey! Slow down there, kid, you’ll choke!” the clone reprimands and takes the glass away.

Cal’s hands twitch and reach out, shaking, for the glass and the clone hums. “See, look at that. You’re already getting stronger,” He rewards Cal with more water and the fiery-haired padawan is cautious to accept it only in slow sips, lest it be taken away again.

The mere action of sitting up and drinking is absolutely, utterly exhausted and the boy collapses, closing his eyes and resting for almost a half an hour before he manages to work up the strength to open his eyes and speak:

“Are you going to kill me?”

His voice is hoarse and harsh and barely audible. He tells himself that he isn’t afraid, but he hears the heart monitor climb and feels the way tears burn in his eyes.

_Where is the other clone?_ He thinks in a primal panic, like a mouse trapped under a cat’s paw. _Off to fetch his blaster?_

It’s a terrible, accusatory though and Cal feels that he ought to be ashamed of it, but he can’t follow through.

(He’s too afraid of the bloodied clone with the wild eyes standing over him.)

“No... no, of course not,”

The kind clone with the voice that sang to him, looks distant and sad and likes he wants to run away and hide.

“You’re safe here, I promise. Me and Rex, we’re gonna take care of you,”

Though the words carry hope, the clone’s voice is hollow and empty.

Now Cal starts to feel guilty, and once the guilt starts, it doesn’t stop.

_You abandoned your master._ It says. _You should’ve died with him._

“What is- what is- what is your name?” Cal squeaks, and is mildly disturbed by how thick his tongue feels, and how it refuses to obey him. He to release his fear into the Force—but it’s a hard thing to do because every time he touches the Force, he’s reminded, starkly, of the big gaping hole in the galaxy where thousands of Jedi used to be. It’s just another painful reminder that he _shouldn’t_ be alive, he should’ve died with the other Jedi.

“Kix,” the clone—the medic responds and Cal straightens up, trying and failing to maintain eye contact.

“Thank you- thank- thank- you- you for saving me, Kix,” the padawan manages and Kix merely shrugs listlessly.

“No problem, kid,”

Cal knows that he ought to introduce himself, too (that’s the polite thing to do) but he’s just so _tired_ that he can’t bring himself to care. So he sinks back down against the pillows and closes his eyes.

“You in any pain, kid?” Kix asks.

_Yes._ Yes is the correct answer. Yes, because his body feels like it’s on fire and his head hurts and he’s _scared_.

But there’s a sinister voice in the back of his head, that sounds all too much like Knight Skywalker’s, that tells him: _Good. You deserve it for abandoning your master._

Cal’s throat feels thick and he cautiously shakes his head, ‘no’ and squeezes his eyes shut, actively not thinking about Master Jarro’s head exploding.

Kix, however, isn’t an idiot, but has the decency to wait until exhaustion claims his patient, before he administers the next dosage of medication.

Unfortunately, baby Jedi must be very good at _pretending_ to be asleep, because a second later, a single, grey-green eye cracks open and the boy whispers, “Kix? Will- will- will you- will you stay?”

It’s a long time before Kix says anything, but eventually he nods. “Yeah, sure, of course,”

“Can- Can- will- Can you sing that- Can you sing that song?”

Another long silence, punctured only by a chuckle from Kix. The medicine has made this boy brave. 

The medication must be doing it’s job because Cal is very clearly struggling to stay conscious.

“You remember?” Kix asks quietly and the boy only nods.

Sighing heavily, Kix settles into a chair and sings, just loud enough to be heard by his still-potentially-dying patient, and no once else.

\- - -

Cal isn’t the same. He doesn’t feel right in the Force.

Caleb tries not to be upset about this as he creeps into the med-bay in the middle of the night. Rex is passed out on his cot with Ahsoka neatly tucked into his arms. Kix, Caleb is afraid, might still be awake.

Caleb knows that Kix doesn’t like him. Which is fine, Caleb doesn’t care. But the last thing he wants is to incur the medic’s wrath by disturbing one of his patients.

That, however, is a risk he’s more than willing to take to visit Cal.

_Cal’s awake_. They said.

_He’s okay_. They said.

Caleb winces as the door _wooshes_ open. Luckily, Kix is asleep passed out on one of the chairs. Caleb creeps past him bravely, his eyes fixed on the boy on the cot.

_What if it was all a lie?_

Caleb is so desperate not to be alone in the galaxy, the thought almost brings him to tears.

_What if he doesn’t wake up?_

Carefully, Caleb put’s a hand on Cal’s shoulder and gives it a little shake.

Two green eyes snap open and Caleb nearly sobs in relief.

It feels like an eternity before either of them speak, but it’s Cal who breaks the ice, his speech jumbled and halting but real and _alive:_

“Caleb?”

Caleb takes his hand and grins, really, really grins for the first time in _weeks_.

“Actually, it’s padawan Dume to you,” he teases and, although Cal doesn’t have the energy to laugh, his green eyes light up and that’s more than enough for Caleb.

“You’re- you- you’re- you’re okay,” Cal stutters out and his head lolls to one side, his face twisted up in grief as the tears stars rolling down his cheeks.

For a moment, Caleb is almost horrified by this display: as initiates, they were both so _proud_ , both refusing to be anything less than the perfect padawan. To see Cal now, reduced to tears like a youngling... (as if Caleb hadn’t also done more than his fair share of crying these past few weeks) is disturbing on a deeper level than Caleb can put into words.

“Yeah... yeah I’m okay,” he says and carefully wipes the tears away from Cal’s face, ignore the way tears course down his own cheeks.

“Just us?” Cal asks and the breath catches in Caleb’s throat.

“Yeah...” he whimpers, trying and failing to sound less distressed than he feels. “Just us,”

They are the very last of the Jedi Order, the only two survivors. Together, they alone share the responsibility of restoring the Jedi Order, of facing off against Darth Sidious and Darth Vader. It’s an awful lot of weight to place on the shoulders of two thirteen and fourteen-year-old boys.

Cal swallows thickly and nods his head, brave and resolute and that just makes Caleb want to cry even more.

“Can I stay with you?” Caleb chokes out, and Cal nods.

“Yes please,” he whispers, though he doesn’t have the strength to move himself.

That doesn’t deter Caleb at all, who hoists himself up onto Cal’s cot and wraps himself around the other padawan, like they’re initiates again.

_Just us._

The only solace in the whole galaxy is in knowing that the other is still alive.

\- - -

Very far away, two clones share the same sentiment as the huddle together for the night.

“Things will be better tomorrow,” the first clone assures, wrapping half cybernetic limbs around his brother.

“You keep saying that...,” the other whispers, turning to hide his tattooed face against the shoulder of the first.

“Maybe tomorrow I’ll be right,”


	7. I Have Outwalked the Furthest City Lights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello. Apparently I am a dumbass and I posted this chapter to the wrong story. -.-

_"1. if you ever feel like leaving him, renting a rich blue convertible and becoming someone else somewhere in the desert, i’ll go with you  
  
_

_2\. thank you for all the horrible and/or dangerous things you did first, so i could learn from your mistakes. specifically: getting herpes, dropping out of school, getting a trendy dream catcher tattoo._

_3\. i dropped acid with your ex-girlfriend._

_4\. remember back during your chunky crystals and channeling spirits phase, when you told me in the back seat of a Ford Taurus that you had spoken with my higher self and she was “really worried about me”? i haven’t trusted myself since._

_5\. i took French in school because you did, and i thought we would be able to have top secret conversations about sex and drugs and rated R films in front of mom. why didn’t we do that?_

_6\. i was the one that destroyed your Black Crowes tape, not the dog."_

* * *

In the weeks that follow, Cal and Kix stick to each other like glue. For Cal, this is only because he is relegated to the the medical bay, or so Kix assumes. But for Kix, Cal is his whole world. Kix wakes up in the morning, continues to eat, to function because of Cal.

Kix loves his brother. Of course he does! But Rex doesn’t need him the way Cal does. The ginger haired padawan barely had the strength to lift a spoon full of nutrient rich mush to his lips. Kix is in charge of changing bandages and IV drips, managing pain, keeping him hydrated and well-nourished, working in physical rehabilitation...

Rex doesn’t need Kix the way Cal does.

Of course, Rex also doesn’t flinch away the way Cal does when he gets close, and that’s the duality of the situation: Cal doesn’t really want anything to do with Kix. Scratch that, Cal is terrified of Kix. He’s even worse with Rex, but that’s besides the point.

The point is: Kix’s only reason for living hates him. So what is he meant to do? Continue, of course. He is, after all, the only thing keeping Cal alive and recovering. But after that? Once the boy’s injuries have recovered to the point where he’ll no longer need constant medical supervision? What’ll he do then?

Die, probably.

What reason is there in living? Especially with all of the blood on his hands? He was in the Temple. He killed Jedi. He killed padawans. How is he supposed to cope with that?

Well, he copes with it by not really coping with it at all, actually. He copes with it by pushing it aside and ignoring it. Which is fine because he doesn’t plan on living very long after Cal recovers.

Kix is startled from his thoughts when Cal awakens rather abruptly, a cry on fear on his lips. The boy looks around the room wildly and when his eyes land on Kix, they widen in terror and he lifts his arms to protect his head.

Kix, in turn, raises his hands amicably. “It’s alright, Cal. It’s just me, Kix. Do you remember? Are you with me?” he asks, crossing the room. These questions are necessary for distinguishing between a simple nightmare, or a night terror—both of which Cal has suffered following the incident.

Slowly, Cal lowers his arms and relaxes, resting comfortably against the pillow. “I’m here,” he says softly. “I’m sorry, Kix... did I wake you?”

Kix can’t help but smile and tries to ignore the pride that blooms in his chest.

_He’s a good kid. Never met anybody so compassionate before._

“Nah, you’re alright, I was up anyways,” He settles beside Cal and goes through the motions—checking heart rate, blood pressure, blood oxygen level, that sort of thing.

In the first few days following Cal’s awakening, things were touch-and-go—he’d wake up from a nightmare and panic, his blood pressure would spike and induce seizures and Kix would spend far too long trying to stabilize him.

These days, things had more or less evened out. Cal hadn’t suffered a seizure in nearly a week and he was coming along well with his physical rehabilitation.

Kix goes to pull the blood-pressure cuff off of Cal’s arm and he accidentally moves too quickly—Cal panics and flinches away, his heart rate soaring.

Immediately, Kix backs off, cursing himself. “Hey, hey, it’s alright. I’m sorry I spooked you. Deep breaths,” he instructs and try to ignore the way his heart sinks.

_They’d given him that same look of panic when he stormed their Temple._

“S-Sorry... sorry...” Cal says, struggling to regain control of his breathing. “I-I didn’t mean to- you did do- kriff!” he cries in frustration, his limbs flailing out haphazardly. “This is stupid, why does this keep happening? I’m not afraid of you!”

Kix sighs softly—they’ve been through this before. “It’s not your fault, Cal. Your brain is telling you things that aren’t true, it just need time to learn that things are okay,” he assures, gingerly resting his hand on Cal’s back. “Deep breaths, Cal. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Can you feel my hand on your back? I want you to focus on that feeling,”

Panic attacks are nothing new for Kix. He’s a medic, after all. He’d helped many, many, many of his brothers work through them. Though, none of them had every struggled with them as frequently as Cal did. It happened often: usually daily, sometimes twice or even three times a day. Kix couldn’t even begin to imagine how exhausting it would be to deal with that on top of everything else. They’d been working on identifying triggers but even that had been difficult, considering Kix _was_ one of his triggers.

How are you supposed to help someone heal, when your mere presence actively inhibits healing?

Kix struggles against a violent wave of nihilism and self-deprecation as Cal slowly manages to recover his breathing.

“You’re not looking to hot, kid. Nauseated? Think you’re gonna puke?” Kix asks gently and Cal nods helplessly. This is all just part of the routine.

Kix fetches the little waste bin and helps hold the kid up while he pukes his guts out, miserable and aching and tired.

Then, Kix cleans the bucket, preps a new IV (the kid has been off the line for nearly three days but if the vomiting continues through the night, which it sometimes did after particularly gruesome nightmare, he might need something to combat the dehydration) and grabs an extra blanket and an oxygen mask, just in case.

When he turns back around, Cal is curled up on his side, looking smaller and more fragile than Kix has ever seen him before.

The clone doesn’t need the Force to know that something’s wrong. He sets his medical supplies on the table and crosses the room with only the blanket in tow.

“Cold?” he asks, and red alarms go off in his head when Cal A.) doesn’t flinch (Kix has been moving awfully fast) and B.) only shrugs.

Kix swallows thickly. He’d never been very good at talking other people through their emotions—panic attacks were one thing, but grief and frustration and that sort of thing were another thing entirely. There was no breathing technique to make grief go away, no pill to make dead masters return.

Part of Kix wants to run away—he has no idea where to even begin with this sort of thing! Part of him wants to run away and get Rex (who’d always been better at this sort of thing) because he had no idea how to care for a grieving, highly _, highly_ , traumatized child.

Nevertheless, he was created for the sole purpose of protecting Jedi. Right now, Cal is his Jedi and he’s going to do everything in his power to ease the pain.

_Cal is his Jedi._

“What’s wrong?” Kix asks, because that’s the first step, right?

Cal scrunches his eyes shut. He looks like he’s holding back tears. “What if I never get any better?” he asks. “What if I’m stuck like this forever?”

Kix’s heart twists. He knows this feel, he’s tasted its bitter fruit before.

“You won’t be. Not forever,”

Cal shakes his head. “But what if I _am_? I don’t want to be like this anymore. I don’t want to be scared. I’m so tired of being scared, and I’m tired of throwing up, and I’m tired of the nightmares,” Cal’s bottom lip quivers and he shuts his eyes tight, squeezing out a few tears that race down his cheeks. “I’m scared, Kix,” he admits softly. “I’m scared that I’ll never be useful ever again. Why am I even alive if I can’t do anything? Everybody is gone and I-I miss them and-and I’m scared! Kix, I’m so scared!” Cal breaks and Kix can’t resist the urge any longer: he pulls the kid into his arms and holds him tight.

“I’m scared too,” Kix admits softly, carding his fingers through Cal’s copper hair. “I’m scared, too,”

Kix is afraid that _he’s_ the source of Cal’s problems. He shares the same face as the man who’d nearly beaten Cal to death... how horrible would to be to wake up from a nightmare with that face looming over you?

Kix is afraid that he’s irredeemable. He’s afraid that someday Cal and Ahsoka and Caleb are going to find out about what he did in the Temple—he _killed_ people, people they’d loved—and that they’re going to hate him forever.

Most of all, he’s afraid of what’s going to happen when Cal no longer needs him. What’s going to become of his life then? What’s going to stop him from answering the Call of the Void?

Kix tightens his arms around his ginger haired padawan. This is wrong and he knows it. Cal is scared of him. Cal is terrified of him. Touching him, holding him, what if that makes it _worse?_

But Cal, much to his surprise, returns the gesture and clings on to Kix, hiding his face in the crook of the medic’s neck.

Kix swallows his heart, suddenly overcome with an emotion he can’t quite place—it’s a painful bittersweetness, a dangerous hope that maybe, _maybe_ he’s doing something right. Maybe he’s actually helping the kid.

“It’s okay,” he assures timidly. “It’s going to be alright. And... it’s okay to be scared I think,”

Cal’s hold tightens and his body begins to tremble. Perhaps that was the wrong answer.

“But what if it’s never goes away?” Cal asks and Kix sighs heavily.

“And maybe it won’t,” he begins, shaking and unsteady. “But you know what? I’ve found that sometimes... sometimes fear is just... just a feeling. And we don’t- we don’t always have to listen to our feelings. Your brain sees something that reminds you of a time when you got really hurt and it freaks out, and it tries to warn you that you’re in danger. But... there is no danger. Not really,” he says. “Look around, Cal. Do you see anything right now that’s putting you in immediate physical danger?”

It takes a minute, but eventually, timidly, Cal lifts his tear stained face and glances around the room. His eyes land on Kix and Kix does his best not to shift uncomfortably.

_We have the same face._

“...no,” Cal says at last.

“What about your ears, can you hear anything?”

Cal closes his eyes and listens, the answer is the same.

Together, they repeat the question for the next three senses and each time the answer is the same: no.

Kix smiles, ever so gently. “So then, according to your senses, are you safe?” he asks and watches as Cal’s eyes widen in realization, as if this is the first time the thought has ever occurred to him.

He sags, relaxing in Kix’s arms and whispered softly, “Yes,”

Beside him, Kix chuckles. “Feel any better?”

The boy nods. “My chest isn’t so tight,”

“See? You won’t be scared forever, Cal. You’re getting better everyday. And I’m... I’m very proud of you, you’ve been working hard,” Kix isn’t one to dish out compliments left and right, and he feels a little uncomfortable doing so. However, it felt necessary in the moment and Kix truly is proud of him, he won’t deny that.

“Think you can get some sleep, kiddo?” he asks, carefully releasing Cal from his hold, but, much to his surprise, Cal holds on.

“Wait! Could you... could you stay here? Just for tonight?” he asks sheepishly. “I... feel safer when you’re around and Rex... still scares me a little,” Cal’s eyes are downcast and full of shame. “I know I shouldn’t, and- I’m sorry if I- you don’t have to,” he corrects, as if he’s suddenly worried that he’s stepped out of line.

Kix, however, is so shocked that he can barely think and for a full fifteen seconds, he doesn’t say anything. Then, he nods, sort of numbly, and says, “Sure, _vod’ika._ Just for tonight,”

\- - -

What Kix doesn’t seem to realize, is that he’s Cal’s whole world too.

The Jedi died. In one horrible night, everything Cal has ever known had disappeared, vanished in a hazy smoke. Nothing was clear. Everything was uncertain. Cal’s only sense of stability came in the form of Kix.

Kix, who kept him on a tight schedule of physical therapies and medications.

Kix, who told him stories if he asked, and tried to make him laugh if he ever got too upset.

Kix, who was patient and kind and never got upset with him for being too angry or too scared.

Kix, who helped talk him through his feelings, who helped him understand why he felt the way he did; why he couldn’t make his legs work the way they were supposed to, or why his right arm would move when he wanted to use his left arm.

They’ve found a pair of second-hand crutches at some pawnshop on a teeny tiny little moon a couple of days ago. Cal’s been using them to get around for the past few days, though he’s been limited to no more than an hour or so.

The mobility is nice. There was a time where Cal thought he was going to lose his mind if he had to stay holed up in bed all day. That being said, ever since he’d started walking around, Kix had become somewhat distant.

Even now, Cal can feel Kix’s distress in the Force. There’s something dark occupying the medic’s thoughts and Cal wants to help, but he doesn’t know how.

So he talks to Rex about it.

It’s the hardest thing he’s ever done in his entire _life_ , talking to Rex, alone, without Kix’s protection. But he does it because he cares about Kix, because he’s worried about him.

“I’ll talk to him about it,” Rex assures with a kind smile that makes Cal feel just a little more comfortable.

But things don’t get better. With everyday that passes, Kix just seems to get further away.

And it’s not until one day, when they’ve landed to stop and get supplies, that things come to a head.

Rex has taken Caleb and Ahsoka into town to get groceries and let them stretch their legs, and Cal is alone in medbay, resting comfortably, when it suddenly occurs to him that he has no idea where Kix is.

And he’s worried about Kix. Kix has been acting strangely for so _long_ now. So he does what any responsible Commander would do when their General goes missing, he searches. Because in a way, that’s sort of what they are, isn’t it? A General and a commander? Except it’s more than that. Kix has called him _vod’ika_ a couple of times and Cal knows what that word means. He knows it’s special.

Except, Cal’s never really been a little brother before, he’s got no idea what that’s like. But he’s been somebody’s commander before, and he’s been padawan before, and that’s sort of how he feels towards Kix. Kix is like his master.

Maybe he’ll ask Kix to start teaching him about medicine.

Cal hates his crutches. It’s a horrible thing to admit (and he knows this, which is why he doesn’t say it out loud) but they’re terrible. They’re uncomfortable, and they dig into his armpits, and they’re at least six inches too short. Nevertheless, they serve to support him when his legs suddenly decide they’ve forgotten how to hold up his weight, so he doesn’t complain. Not out loud at least.

It takes him far too long to get outside of the ship, and even longer still to find Kix’s, who’s sitting on a hill overlooking a city skyline. Cal plops down beside him, utterly exhausted and says, “Force above, couldn’t you have gone somewhere closer to the ship?”

Kix glares daggers at Cal and retaliates with, “What in Sith hells are you doing out here you _di’kut?_ What did I tell you about overexerting yourself?”

Cal ducks his head and has the decency to look sheepish. “Not too...”

“And what are you doing by coming out here?” Kix demands and Cal exhales heavily.

“Exerting myself,” he says.

Kix scowls at him once more, as if really trying to drill the message into him, before turning his attention back to the cityscape. “Just a fair warning, I’m carrying you back,”

Kix’s voice is just a little too loud and Cal finds himself cringing, but it’s something he’s been getting better at. “Kix! No! That’s embarrassing! I can walk by myself. I promise I can!”

Kix snorts. “It’s not a matter of whether or not you _can_ , it’s a mater of whether or not you _should_ ,”

Cal sighs and crosses his arms. “Yeah, okay. We’ll see,” he grumbles, but the medic ignores him.

They sit like that for a while, in comfortable silence before Kix finally breaks the ice:

“What the hell are you even doing out here?” he demands, but Cal knows he’s not actually that upset.

“I was looking for you,” Cal lifts his head and meets Kix’s eyes when Kix turns to him to ask,

“Looking for me? What for? Is everything okay? You should’ve commend me,”

Cal hesitated for a moment. “I was worried about you,” he admits softly. “You’ve been acting different lately,”

Kix straightens and Cal knows something he said must’ve gotten his attention. “Im fine,” he says, and this is a lie but Cal doesn’t know it.

“Are you angry with me?” Cal asks and, with some effort, draws his knees up to his chest.

“Angry with you? No! Of course not, why would you think that?” the medic demands, as if upset by the mere notion of it.

“You’ve been avoiding me,”

Kix’s stomach drops.

“That’s not true,” he argues, but both parties know he’s lying.

Cal studies Kix for a long time without speaking. There’s a lot that goes on in Kix’s head that Cal doesn’t know about. He doesn’t know about the guilt or the shame. He isn’t aware of the suicidality or the nightmares. He does, however, know that his friend is hurting and he wants to fix it, even if he doesn’t know how.

Kix fixed him, after all. Wouldn’t it be kind to return the favor?

“I’m happy you’re apart of my life, Kix,” Cal says softly, still hugging his knees. “I don’t know if I’ve ever told you, but I’m happy that we met. I’m glad I got to know you, _ori’vod_ ,”

Kix freezes, Cal can feel something in the Force churning, twisting, struggling to accept.

“What?” Kix asks, so softly it’s as if he’s holding his breath.

Cal’s freckled face turns red and his eyes widen. “I-I’m sorry! Maybe I shouldn’t have- you just called me- you’ve called me _vod’ika_ before and I figured-“

“No. It’s fine. I’m not mad I just...” Kix trails off and doesn’t tell Cal that he’s just surprised, that he didn’t think Cal would ever be willing to call him family after what he’d done to the Jedi Order.

“Yeah, me too, kid. I’m glad I met you, too,” the medic says. It sounds lame but it weighs heavy in the Force and Cal is pacified.

“Will you teach me Mando’a?” Cal blurts out suddenly and Kix can’t help but laugh.

“Mando’a?” he repeats and Cal nods.

“Before... _y’know_... I heard the troops speaking it all the time. And you and Rex talk to each other in Mando’a all the time, too. Plus! Caleb knows it, or at least a little bit of it, and I know Ahsoka’s picking it up from Rex and I don’t want to be left out,” Cal explains, sheepishly twiddling with his thumbs.

This earns another laugh from Kix, who says, “Sure, kid. Mando’a lessons it is,”

“Also, I want to learn about medicine,”

This gives Kix pause. “What?”

“I... I want to be a healer, just like you,” Cal admits and Kix looks absolutely stunned.

“Why... why would you want that?” he asks.

Now it’s Cal’s turn to pause. His green eyes narrow and he tilts his head to the side, confused. The answer is obvious, of course. “Even if... even if I can’t be a Jedi, I still want to help people, like you helped me,”

Cal feels the Force churning once more as Kix just stares at him. Cal worries that, maybe, he’s said something wrong, but then Kix smiles, thin and watery, as if something wonderful has just occurred to him.

“Of course, kid. I’d be... I’d be happy to teach you,” Kix whispers, his voice breaking because... maybe there is a purpose for him after all.

The two brothers sit on the hillside together for some time after that, neither willing to move until Rex comes to call them home for dinner.

It’s oddly domestic.

That night, for the first time, Cal sits with the others—he even offers Rex a little smile—and they all eat together. Kix cracks jokes for the first time in _weeks_ and—much to Caleb’s amusement—banters and trades barbs with Rex, who just seems happy that his _vod’ika_ is _smiling_ again.

Distantly, Cal wonders if this is what it would’ve been like to have grown up in a regular family.

For them first time since their downfall, Cal finds that he doesn’t miss the Jedi. He’s happy right where he is.

* * *

_"7. every time you ran away from home, i followed you."_

_-_ "7 Things I Never Told My Older Sister Because I Know Better, In Reverse Chronological Order" by Mindy Nettifee


	8. I Have A Ghost I Call My Childhood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Parenting is hard and Ahsoka’s curiosity gives Rex a panic attack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As we grow up, I think there comes a time when we realize that our parents are just as flawed as we are. 
> 
> In other news, I’m trapped halfway between comedy and tragedy. 
> 
> Also! I really wanted to thank you all for your support, it’s so wonderful knowing how much you love this story, you all give me life!

_Long ago we quit lifting our heels_   
_like the others—horse, dog, and tiger—_   
_though we thrill to their speed_   
_as they flee. Even the mouse_   
_bearing the great weight of a nugget_   
_of dog food is enviably graceful._   
_There is little spring to our walk,_   
_we are so burdened with responsibility,_   
_all of the disciplinary actions_   
_that have fallen to us, the punishments,_   
_the killings, and all with our feet_   
_bound stiff in the skins of the conquered._   
_But sometimes, in the early hours,_   
_we can feel what it must have been like_   
_to be one of them, up on our toes,_   
_stealing past doors where others are sleeping,_   
_and suddenly able to see in the dark._

\- “Walking on Tiptoe” by Ted Kooser

* * *

  
Ours is not a world designed for children. It is too big, too fast, too dangerous, too complicated. Children do not belong in the world we have created. They are too small for our world, too fragile, too new. Children grow up in a world that is not sized for them, a world that is full of restrictions and empty of patience, empty of wonder. There is no room for play in this world. Childhood is a season of being meant to be passed by quickly and reminisced on at a later date. There is no time to enjoy childish pleasures.

The Jedi knew this well. Their childhoods were unimportant and ignored. They trained their children to kill, and sent them into war.

The clones knew this well. Their childhoods were false and forgotten. The Republic trained them to die, and sent them into war.

Ahsoka is not yet aware that she is an outcast in society, that the galaxy wants to kill her, that its people are hunting her. She is not yet aware that her mere existence is a crime whose only fitting punishment is death without trial.

She is blissfully ignorant of this fact.

She doesn’t yet realize that the Galaxy is not a place for children.

She is, however, very much aware that 90% of the _ship_ is not a place for children. And she knows this because Rex and Caleb and Kix remind her of this _constantly._ It’s absolutely infuriating: every time she finds something interesting—some new nook in the ship that she hasn’t yet managed to wedge herself into to explore, flashing buttons that she has never pressed before, a cool, new bug that she wants to put in her mouth... anything _new_ and _exciting—_ they pull her away because it’s not meant for kids.

Ahsoka’s bright eyes snap open. Rex had put her down for a nap only fifteen minutes prior, and she had tried to sleep, she really, really had... but she’s just too restless. Her little feet are itching for adventure and she’s filled with _energy!_ So she slips off her bunk, crosses the room, climbs up onto Caleb’s bunk, and riffles through the storage compartment nearest his bed until she finds a few loose sheets of flimsi, which she greedily collects.

Ahsoka knows she’s supposed to be napping right now, so instead of trying to find Rex (who would get mad at her) she slips out into the hallway and trots down towards medbay. She’s hoping that, if she asks politely enough, Kix will let her use a pencil so she can draw with Cal.

Ahsoka used to hate medbay. It was a scary place, and Kix used to be grumpy and mean and scary. But ever since Cal’s woken up, he’s been very nice and recently, Ahsoka has decided that she very much likes Kix. He sneaks her extra snacks, and sometimes he sits with her and Cal and draws, and once he carried her on his shoulders and that was fun because she was _so high up!_

Except... Kix isn’t in medbay, and neither is Cal.

Huffing, she heads towards main living area, hoping to find Caleb. Caleb is lots and lots of fun, and he knows some of the best games ever! So maybe he’ll play with her? But he’s not in the living area.

Where is everybody?

It’s then that she hears laughter coming from the cockpit, so she peaks her head inside and frowns. Rex letting Caleb fly the ship? That’s not fair! Why doesn’t he ever let _her_ fly the ship?

Because flying the ship is for grown-ups only.

Growing increasingly frustrated, she backs away and returns to the living area, where she plops herself on the floor and kicks her heels against the ground.

It’s not fair! The ship is too small and too still and too quiet and she’s _bored._ She wants to do something fun. She wants to be close to them. She’s very tempted to ask and wanders over to the door, ready to sneak inside and request that they come out and play with her, but she resists the urge, knowing that she’ll only get in trouble.

She is supposed to be napping, after all. _  
_

Grumpily, she pulls herself to her feet. This is fine, she can find ways to occupy herself. So she does what any good toddler does, she find the most destructive way possible to entertain herself.

First, of course, she heads to the ‘fresher to check the corners and the shower drain for treasures, namely: bugs and wads of hair. The former is for snacking, the latter it to add to her collection.

Being the only non-human aboard the ship and having none of her own, Ahsoka is absolutely fascinated by hair. She thinks it’s the strangest stuff in the entire world, so she collects it. She used to hide her collection of loose hair wads in an empty drawer in medbay, but after Kix discovered it and was absolutely revolted by it, she’s been hiding her drain-findings in her room, beneath her pillow.

Unfortunately, the ‘fresher is devoid of both bugs and hair. But while Ahsoka is squatting in the shower, picking at the drain, a big drop of water lands right on her pieces of flimsi and Ahsoka makes an absolutely wonderful discovery: wet flimsi _sticks_ to things. She proceeds to spend the next half an hour meticulously shredding the flimsi into tiny pieces, spitting on them, and sticking them to the walls.

The makeshift spit-stickers make for absolutely _lovely_ decorations and Ahsoka adorns them across all across the walls in the ‘fresher, the hallway, the room that she and Caleb share, and medbay.

Then, it’s off to the quarters that Rex and Kix share.

After decorating Kix’s half of the room, she scrambles up onto Rex’s bed, and she’s halfway through sticking wet pieces of flimsi to his pillow when she notices a... _thing_ laying forgotten on Rex’s desk.

It’s a heavy, metallic thing, and the sight of it makes her feel sick.

_A blaster_.

The name of the object trails lazily through her mind, accompanied by memories of screaming and pain and fire.

She doesn’t like those memories, so she locks them away.

The flimsi is quickly forgotten. Defiantly, she pushes away the _bad feeling_ and replaces it with curiosity. Carefully, she climbs down off of Rex’s bed and scrambles up onto the desk, gingerly pulling the blaster into her lap. She points it towards herself, one hand resting precariously on the trigger, and peers into the barrel of the blaster. She sticks a finger inside, trying to figure out what it is, what goes inside of it.

Then, she turns the blaster back towards the wall and gives it a rough shake. As she does so, her hand tightens around the handle of the gun and she accidentally depresses the trigger. The blaster immediately comes to life and fires at the wall. The action startles her so thoroughly that she accidentally drops the blaster, which fires again when it hits the floor.

It’s familiar—the sounds, the color. The blaster carried memories that Ahsoka refuses to acknowledge and, in her attempt to escape them, she scramble backwards, falling off the desk with a loud scream.

Rex comes scrambling into the room so quickly that he trips over his own feet and nearly falls flat on his face—he manages to catch himself by his hands, but ends up scraping his palm, which begin to bleed. His eyes are wide with panic—he looks almost manic with his unshaven face and his scruffy hair (which has almost grown past regulation length, but Rex hasn’t been able to find it within him to shave his head anymore)—and his hands are shaking as he reaches out and carefully pulls his blaster back towards himself.

(Ahsoka isn’t aware that Rex has had this nightmare before—that he’s dreamed of hearing his _jetiise_ scream only to find his three _jet’ika_ and his _vod_ dead on the floor, at the hands of Vader himself. She doesn’t know that he’s shaken to his very core.)

“What the _hell_ happened?” Rex demands, shaking with fear or anger as he picks himself up.

Ahsoka is in trouble. She knows this. Slowly, her eyes trail up the wall and she spots the dark, ashy patch where the blaster had made its mark. Oops. Her bottom lip starts to tremble as she whispers, “I dunno...”

“Ahsoka, what happened!” Rex shouts and the Togruta recoils back, pressing herself into a little ball in the furthest corner she can get to.

It’s familiar.

(Distantly, Rex is reminded of their first meeting: the Togruta hiding as best she could while Rex fought desperately to stave off the influence of the chip.)

Rex is angry. She’s scared him. She doesn’t understand the complexity of it, but it doesn’t really matter to her. All she knows is that he _feels_ —she can feel it too, it’s radiating off of him. If she was a little bit older, she would understand _why_ he was so angry; she would understand that he was scared. If she was older, she would’ve recognized that she’d done something wrong, and she would’ve apologized. But at only four years old, her brain is still mostly wired for survival and basic emotional, so the ins and outs of “right” and “wrong” haven’t quite entered the picture yet.

“I’m sorry...” she whispers, her stomach rolling with waves of fear—is he going to hurt her?

In her mind’s eye, she sees flashes of images: monsters in white armor setting fire to her home; a man with yellow eyes and a blue sword slaughtering her friends. She burns the memory before it can consume her.

“Do you have an ouchie?” she asks, louder than she needs to, pointing at the scrape on the palm of his hand.

Rex is still visibly shaking, and he stares at her with a wildness that she ~~remembers from her before-home~~ has never seen before.

Ahsoka recoils, her hands wrapping around her stubby little lekku, and she tries to hide her face behind them.

He’s mad. He’s so, so mad. His face is turning red. But he still isn’t saying anything. Why won’t he say something?

“Kiss it better?” she asks quietly, trying desperately to change the subject or appease Rex’s rage. Still hiding behind one of her hands, she reaches out for Rex with the other and makes grabby-hands for his palm.

He’s hurt. She knows how to fix that.

There is very little that Ahsoka is willing to remember about... whatever life she had before Rex and Caleb and Kix and Cal. But she does remember that the... people... who used to care for her would kiss her scrapes and bruises to make them all better.

Nobody kisses her scrapes and bruises anymore, though.

But that’s alright because, at the very least, she can still offer her kisses to make other people better—Cal usually readily accept her kisses which is good because he’s very broken, and he’s going to need an awful lot of them if he’s ever going to get better.

“ _Ahsoka_ ,” Rex spits, and the tiny Togruta shrinks away a little more.

“I’m sorry...” Ahsoka whispers, her eyes filling with tears.

“Don’t you _ever_ touch this, _ever_ again. Do you understand?” Rex growls, grabbing her arm and pulling her to her feet.

He squeezes her arm just a little too hard, and tears start to trickle down her. She nods vigorously.

“Good. Go to your room. You’re in time out.”

Ahsoka’s eyes flash wide and she yanks her arm out of his hand. “But it was an accident!” she cries in protest and Rex turns to face her with the hardest, coldest expression she’s ever seen.

“Your. Room. Now.” he grinds out through his teeth.

Ahsoka’s face twists up in anguish and she bursts into tears, scrambling out of Rex’s room and towards her own.

“And don’t come out until I tell you!” Rex shouts.

He needs time to think. He’s shaking. She’d almost shot herself. She could’ve _died._ What the hell was she doing? She was supposed to be asleep! After locking the blaster away, Rex balls his hands into fists and slams them into the closed door until his knuckles split and bleed.

What if his little Togruta had _died_ because he’d forgotten to stow his blasters away after cleaning them that morning?

Incompetent.

Worthless.

How could he have been so _stupid?_

The protectiveness he feels towards his baby Jedi is not a new sensation. He felt this way towards his brothers, before Vader came in and stole them away from him.

The tightness in his chest—the urge to _protect_ that rages inside of him even now—he’s carried it with him since Kamino, since the first time he watched one of his brothers march off down seldom used hallways to be decommissioned. Kamino made him strong. Kamino made him ruthless.

Some of the Kaminoans liked to kill. Others were sick afterwards. They thought the threat of euthanasia would be enough to scare their products into absolute obedience.

But Rex had never been afraid to die. He had only ever been afraid of being alone.

So when he hears the blaster-fire, when he hears the _scream,_ and he sees Ahsoka laying motionless on the floor with his blaster just out of reach...

The sky falls. The whole world dissolves and the light around him distills into a single shade of blinding red.

Rex had loved his brothers so fiercely it had turned him feral on the battlefield.

Cal and Caleb and Ahsoka... he loves them all the same way. He die to protect them. He would give anything to keep them safe.

Ahsoka almost shot herself.

Rex knew the name, rank, and CT number of every man in the 501st. He recited them nightly, during his remembrances.

_Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum._

_I am still alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal._

In the beginning of the war, his brothers would run towards him and they would count the names of the living and they would hug each other and weep.

In the beginning of the war, his brothers would strip their bunks of blankets and pillows, pushing theirs beds off into a corner, giving them room to make one enormous nest in the center of the room where they would pile in and sleep together, and nobody was ever alone.

In the beginning of the war, his brothers would sit on the floor together and share food, alcohol, sweets and cans of blue paint—swapping stories and names and memories, while holding each other close and _laughing_.

In the Jedi Temple, his brothers had snarled and fired their burning blasters, and Rex had to kill his brothers because they had grown wild, like animals. _  
_

Euthanasia.

Murder.

So when he hears the blaster-fire, when he hears the _scream,_ and he sees Ahsoka laying motionless on the floor with his blaster just out of reach...

He sees the faces of the Beloved Dead; he sees Fives and Cody opening their arms to welcome the tiny Togruta into their ranks. For one terrible moment, he thinks that Ahsoka, like his brothers, has become nothing more than a distant, flickering light, marching somewhere far away. He fears that she has become nothing more than a name in a prayer, and fading memory of somebody who could’ve been great.

He made her cry.

He didn’t mean to make her cry.

Rex is laying on the floor. He can’t remember how he got there; he doesn’t know how much time has passed. The back of his head hurts. He must’ve hit it on the floor. He reaches up and touches his face. He’d been crying.

Slowly, he sits up and his stomach reels in protest. His chest is still tight, he feels like he can barely breath. The chrono on his desk tells him that he’s lost nearly two hours in his mired memories. Where is Ahsoka?

Pulling himself to his feet, he stumbles drunkly out of his room, ignoring the way the walls shift around him and the way the floor seems to want to rise up to meet him.

From inside of Ahsoka’s room, he hears muffled crying, slow and labored as if the child has completely warn herself out. Hesitantly, he knocks on the door and the crying falls silent.

“Ahsoka? It’s... it’s Rex. Can I come in?” he asks and, after a long, painful silence, he hears her quiet “...okay...” and the door slides open.

Ahsoka is laying listless on her bed, her slender arms wrapped loosely around herself. Her eyes are red and puffy as if she’s been crying for hours.

Rex’s heart twists when he realizes that she probably has been.

He didn’t mean to make her cry.

“Can I sit next to you?” he asks and the child looks away before shrugging and nodding.

So Rex sits on the bed beside her, laying a hand on her shoulder. He’s never felt more uncomfortable in his life. He has no idea how to comfort this child, he has no idea how to remedy the situation. He’s a terrible

_ori’vod_ and he knows this.

Nevertheless, he must try to be better.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” he says gently. “I was... scared. That thing you were playing with... it’s called a blaster. It could’ve hurt you. It could’ve killed you. You must promise to never touch it ever again,”

“I promise,” Ahsoka insists, rubbing her eyes with her little fists.

“Good,” Rex says, and doesn’t give into the ever pressing urge to run away. Instead, he wraps an arm around her, pulling her close. He expects her to struggle, to resist.

She doesn’t.

“Do you... do you still love me?” Ahsoka asks haltingly, looking away from Rex as if she worried he’s going to get upset again.

Being shanked in the kidneys would’ve been less painful.

What the hell is Rex supposed to say to _that_? It’s not as if he doesn’t love her, he does—fiercely. However an upbringing on Kamino and years spent at was have taught him that love is something to be expressed only in actions, not words. He’s not good with words.

“What makes you think I don’t?” he asks, knowing it’s not the right response—she needs affirmation.

Ahsoka’s whole face twists up as a fresh wave of tears spills down her orange cheeks.

“You were gone so long, I got afraid that you wouldn’t come back!” She wails.

Rex bows his head. Why is being an _ori’vod_ so hard, and why is he so bad at it? He can’t explain to her what happened, she too young. She won’t understand. All he can do is try to be better.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I was gone too long, and that was bad. I won’t ever do it again, not ever,” he promises and pulls the squirming, sobbing child into his lap, holding her tight against his chest. He feels like crying, too. And maybe he does, just a little bit, because her crying grows soft and she twists around, patting his face with uncoordinated hands.

It occurs to him, in an instant, that this child is not his _vod’ika._ His _vod_ are dead and she cannot replace them, she cannot fill their role in his life. The hole in his heart, where his brothers used to be, will always be empty. They are gone, marching off somewhere far away.

But she is here.

Likewise, she doesn’t need an _ori’vod_. That is not the role she needs him to play.

She needs him to be her _buir_.

Swallowing thickly, Rex shifts the child in his lap and kisses both of her tear-stained cheeks, a solemn promise to a better parent.

“Kisses make things better don’t they?” he asks, his voice soft.

She responds by wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face against his shoulder.

“Of course I still love you, little ‘un,” he assures and he’s not crying, absolutely not. “I will always love you,”

“I love you to all the stars and back,” she swears and Rex ignores the way his eyes burn and his heart twists.

His _vode_ would’ve loved this kid.

Shifting himself, he lays down on the bunk, the tiny Togruta still curled up tight on his chest. He holds her close and allows his eyes to drift shut. He’s exhausted and almost asleep when he feels something tickle his nose. He cracks his eyes back open and he frowns.

“Why’s there so much hair under your pillow?” he demands and Ahsoka giggles.

It’s the best sound in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good news: I have the next 10 chapters planned and outlined, we’re in this for the long haul. 
> 
> Next chapter is going to be focused around Caleb, because I feel like we haven’t seen enough of him.
> 
> After that, there’s going to be a three chapter arc all about Ahsoka. 
> 
> Then, Echo and Jesse finally get the spotlight.
> 
> Lots of good stuff coming! Please, send me your ideas, things you want to see, I love ideas, I feed on them


	9. Someday, I Will Be Someone Other Than Who I Am Now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please go and check out my new story, “Child-Proofing” which is a sequel to chapter 8! Thank you to evilbrat2013 for the idea!

_I grow old ... I grow old ..._

_I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled._

_Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?_

_I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach._

_I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each._

_I do not think that they will sing to me._

_I have seen them riding seaward on the waves_

_Combing the white hair of the waves blown back_

_When the wind blows the water white and black._

_We have lingered in the chambers of the sea_

_By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown_

_Till human voices wake us, and we drown._

\- "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T. S. Elliot

* * *

Caleb hasn’t eaten in three days.

He pulls himself from his routine morning meditation and listens as his body complains about the lack of nutrients. However, when he thinks of eating, his stomach rolls violently and he feels as if he’s going to be sick. Eating is too _hard._ It requires too much effort. And lately, Caleb hardly has the energy to do much of anything. Nevertheless, he reminds himself that three days is far too long to go without something to eat. He knows that Kix and Rex are going to worry about him, and he doesn’t want that.

Listlessly, he picks himself up off the floor and heads into their little dining area and makes himself a small portion of porridge. He rather likes porridge. It’s mushy and flavorless, sure, but at least it tastes better than those ration bars they used to...

Back before...

It doesn’t matter.

He manages to eat half the bowl of porridge before his protesting stomach refuses anymore, and he pushes it away, resting his hot cheek against the blessedly cool table.

He feels terrible. Well... he feels terrible _all the time_ (probably from the lack of sleep, he reasons) but today he feels especially awful—too hot and too cold all at the same time, and his joints ache, and the light is too bright.

He’s probably getting sick. It would make sense, his eating and sleeping habits haven’t exactly been healthy.

It doesn’t matter.

“Good morning Caleb,” Rex chirps as he carries Ahsoka into the dining area. “Are you alright?” he asks, and Caleb can feel the clone probing along their fledging Force Bond. Luckily, Caleb is the most Force-proficient of anyone on the ship, and he has no trouble shielding himself.

“I’m alright,” he said with a smile, lifting his head. “I just didn’t sleep very well last night,” he explains and Rex frowns.

“Again? Kid, are you still taking those sedatives Kix gave you?”

_No._

“Yeah,” Caleb says, nodding.

Caleb doesn’t want to sleep. Every time he closes his eyes, all he sees is the Temple, burning. Blaster fire and blood and smoke fill his dreams every night—why would he ever want to sleep?

It’s been almost three months since the Temple was destroyed. Caleb ought to be over it by now. But no matter how hard he tries to release his grief into the Force, it doesn’t stay gone.

Master Depa would be so disappointed in him.

He misses the Temple. He misses the Room of a Thousand Fountains. He misses living with other Jedi, misses feeling their presences beside him in the Force. He misses meditating with his master and with his friends. He misses Jocasta Nu hunting him down for holos that had been checked out of the Archive for too long. He misses Vokara Che yelling at him for pulling his stitches or landing himself in the Halls of Healing with Force-exhaustion. He misses Obi-Wan Kenobi slipping into his clases to teach the padawans valuable lessons he’d learned on his mission. He misses going out to lunch with Master Windu—his grandmaster—whenever the opportunity presented itself. He misses Commander Grey and Styles and Soot and Big-Mouth and Remo.

He misses Depa most of all. He misses his master so badly that, when he thinks of her, he feels as if his lightsaber is going right through his heart.

He feels _old_. He feels like he’s been alive for thousands and thousands of years; as if he’s carried the weight of the galaxy on his back since the dawn of the stars; as if he is one of the Old God—Atlas, Prometheus, Sisyphus, as the ancient Corellians used to believe—punished merely for the crime of surviving.

Caleb Dume is tired. He’s so tired... At night, while the others sleep, he lays in his bed and feels as his empty heart slithers through the packed organs in his chest like a snake, coiling around his ribs and squeezing until they buckle and crack from the pressure.

“You finally manage to convince Cal to meditate with you?” Rex asks, breaking the ailing padawan from his stupor.

Caleb closes his eyes and tries to release this latest disappointment into the Force. “No,” he says, and the disappointment only roots itself down deeper.

“Don’t worry about it too much,” Rex says with a smile and places a hand on Caleb’s shoulder. “He’ll come around,”

Caleb isn’t so sure. Cal said he doesn’t want to be a Jedi anymore, that Kix is going to teach him how to be a medic. Caleb, of course, said that Cal could be a healer—there are lots of Jedi healers—and Cal got mad.

He doesn’t want to be a Jedi anymore.

So, Caleb pretends like this doesn’t upset him because, in light of everything that’s happened, Cal’s got every right to want to defect from the Order. Caleb will respect his decision.

Even if there isn’t even an Order anymore to defect from.

It really doesn’t matter.

It’s just... If Cal doesn’t want to be a Jedi anymore and Ahsoka is too young and won’t remember anything about the Jedi, that means that Caleb is the only one left to carry on their heritage. It’s a lot of weight to place on the shoulders of a fourteen year old boy.

Regardless, he will bear it. There isn’t any other choice.

Rex’s face twists into an expression of concern. “Caleb, are you sure you’re alright?” He reaches forward to lay a hand on Caleb’s forehead, perhaps to check for fever, perhaps to brush away a loose strand of hair, perhaps to smack him for being so weak, it doesn’t matter. But the padawan pulls away and stands.

“I’m okay,” he says and Rex doesn’t look convinced.

“Listen, I’m sorry Cal’s not doing your meditations with you. If you’d be willing to teach me, kid, I’d be more than happy to join you,” the ex-commander offers, wanting to spend more time with Caleb.

But the Jedi merely stiffens and looks away. “No thanks,” he says and pretends he doesn’t feel Rex’s disappointment radiating across their bond.

It’s not that he doesn’t appreciate the offer, it’s just... Rex isn’t a Jedi. He doesn’t understand. Meditation isn’t just some... some exercise in focus or relaxation, it’s a communion with the Force. It’s sacred.

Rex doesn’t understand. Nobody understands. Nobody else is left. It’s just Caleb now.

“Are you sure?” Rex asks.

“It’s really fine,” he assures, his fingers tightening around the hilt of his lightsaber. “I’m... I’m going to go do my katas,” he says, backing away.

He does them every day. Every single day. He has to practice. He can’t allow himself to forget his forms. He’s the very last of his people. It’s his responsibility to pass on everything he knows to the next generation. He alone is responsible for the surviving legacy of the Jedi. He has to do his katas. Nothing can be lost.

“Mornin’ Caleb. You eat already?” Kix asks as he and Cal make their way into the dining area. Caleb merely brushes past them.

“Yeah,” he says without looking back. “I had porridge,”

“Do you wanna stay and come sit with us anyways?” Cal asks, sounding hopeful.

“Katas,” is all Caleb says, pretending he doesn’t sense Cal’s worry, his disappointment.

Cal doesn’t understand. He wants to be a _medic_. Caleb is the last of the Jedi, it’s his responsibility to pass on their teachings. He’s the only one left.

It doesn’t matter. Cal doesn’t care, anyways.

“ _Buir_ , make him stay?” he hears Ahsoka ask.

“No, Ahsoka, let him go,” Rex assuages and Caleb pretends that he isn’t jealous of the relationship the Togruta has formed with the clone.

It’s fine, really it is. He doesn’t care, not at all. Ahsoka has Rex, Cal has Kix, and Caleb has the Force. Everything is balanced. It is how it was meant to be.

Caleb doesn’t make it through his katas. He collapses halfway through them, sweating and panting as if his lungs were filled with sweat and mud. He curls into a little ball and whimpers, pressing a hand against his raging stomach.

What’s happening to him? He’s better than this.

Steeling his resolve, he pushes himself to his feet and rushes into the ‘fresher just in time to heave up the meager contents of his stomach, clinging to the bowl of the toilet with the last of his very rapidly fleeting strength.

He heaved until his stomach is empty, then continues, still, to heave until his the muscles in his core ache and beg for release. When he finally manages to catch his breath, he lays himself on the ground, curled up in a little ball, and tries to focus on the Force. He reaches for it the same way a child, high up in his mother’s arms, might reach for a ripened fruit hanging from the low bough of a tree.

But the Force is not like the low-hanging fruit of a tree. The Force is like a Star, ancient and far away and untouchable. Caleb’s fevered mind is too hazy, to fractured to accrue the focus needed for proper meditation.

Depa used to make him stay in her quarters all day, when he got sick. He would lay in bed and she would ignore his requests for caf, and instead bring him terrible, flowery herbal tea that was never sweet enough. She would sit beside him and finish mission reports while he slept, and he was never lonely.

The floor of the ‘fresher is cold and hard. He can feel his own body heat radiating through the fabric of his robes, but in spite of this, he shivers as if he’s trapped on Hoth.

As reality becomes looser and looser, Caleb is almost tempted to call out for his Master, but the desolate place in his heart reminds him that she is dead.

“Kix?” he calls out hoarsely. “Rex?” He waits for a long time, his face pressed against the ‘fresher floor, listening as the ship creaks and groans. He receives no response. They are far away and his voice is soft.

So, instead, he reaches along his Force bonds, trying to send the message across. Nobody comes for him. Far away, he hears Ahsoka shrieking. He must’ve sent too many feelings or thought down the bond and overwhelmed her and Rex likely doesn’t understand what he’s trying to say.

Oh well.

Caleb doesn’t try again.

He closes his eyes and allows himself to drift, searching for the willpower to move, to pick himself up and continue on with his katas. He has to finish them.

Perhaps this is a test, placed on him by the Force to determine whether or not he is worthy of carrying on the legacy of the Jedi? He needs to prove himself, show that he can complete his task in the face of all adversity. So he steadies his breathing and cracks his eyes back open, ignoring the way the bright, fluorescent light seems to burn his eyes. He picks himself up, leaning heavily on the counter for support, and gazes into the mirror.

The face that stares back at him is gaunt and pale. He thinks that the only recognizable part of his features are his scruffy eyebrows, which remain just as wild and unkempt as they have always been. Other than that, the face that stares back at him is a stranger, no longer the lively young padawan he had been only three months prior.

Shame coils hot against his ribs.

His padawan braid brushes across his face, caressing his cheek. His fingers curl around it and a fresh wave of grief spills into his stomach like oil and fire on foaming sea waves.

His mouth opens. He longs to call out for his master, to offer up some apology for his failure, some kind of prayer to appease her restless spirit. But nothing he says will undo the genocide. Nothing will make Caleb any less of the failure that he already is. He closes his mouth and bows his head, trying and failing to release his emotions into the Force.

He doesn’t realize that, even now, his master stands beside him, that she pleads for him to rest, to relieve himself of the guilt he has placed on himself. He doesn’t feel her hands on his shoulders, doesn’t feel the way she reaches out to smooth back his hair, doesn’t feel the kiss she presses to his forehead.

_I am here, young one. I am with you. I am proud of you._

Caleb’s hand falls to his side, fingers curling around the hilt of his lightsaber, releasing it from his belt. With the other hand, he holds out his padawan braid. He unsheathes the blade. The ‘saber lights up, only for a moment, only long enough to sever the braid, which falls to the floor, forgotten.

For years, he had dreamed of this moment. As a child, before Master Depa claimed him as her padawan, he would lay awake and imagine his Knighting Ceremony, imagine different Jedi—from Anakin Skywalker to Kit Fisto to Yoda himself—standing in the place of his (as of yet, unknown) master, cutting his braid, smiling at him with warmth and affection and _pride._

No one here is smiling.

Caleb Dume is not a Jedi Knight. He never will be. There are no Jedi left to knight him. There will be no Ceremony, there will be no Trials. He is nothing more than a child, standing alone in a bathroom, masquerading as something he can never become.

It doesn’t matter.

His fingers brush against the burnt batch of hair where his braid used to sit, and he suddenly pitches forwards, vomiting bile up into the sink.

He wants to cry. He doesn’t. He’s better than that.

After washing his mouth, he bends down to retrieve the abandoned padawan braid. The tradition is to give the braid to somebody important—but who is there left to give it too?

Maybe he’ll toss it out of the airlock at the next chance he gets.

For now, he tucks it into his belt and stumbles out into the hallway, heading down to the cargo bay where he can be alone.

He needs to finish his katas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three guesses who’s the most-most depressed on the ship, hint, it’s Caleb


	10. A Woman From Among the Dead; A Son Who Knows the Stars by Name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ask and ye shall receive: Caleb gets his hug! 
> 
> This chapter took a little departure from my usual style for this story, I feel that it’s a little less flowery. 
> 
> I’m changing up the order of events, I think that next chapter is going to be about the misadventures of Echo and Jesse instead of starting the arc with Ahsoka, but rest assured, Ahsoka’s arc IS coming. (She has to learn that Plo is dead someday, after all. ... Or is he?) 
> 
> Thank you all for your support, I can’t tell you how much it means! I love getting to talk to you, and I love hearing about all the stuff you want to see!

_My fool asks: Do the years spell a path to later_  
_be remembered? Who's there to read them back?_  
_My death says: One bird knows the hour and suffers_  
_to house its millstone-weight as song._  
_My night watchman lies down_  
_in a room by the sea_  
_and hears the water telling,_  
_out of a thousand mouths,_  
_the story behind his mother’s sleeping face._  
_My eternity shrugs and yawns:_  
_Let the stars knit and fold_  
_inside their numbered rooms. When night asks_  
_who I am I answer, Your own, and am not lonely._  
_My loneliness, my sleepless darling_  
_reminds herself_  
_the fruit that falls increases_  
_at the speed of the body rising to meet it._  
_And my child? He sleeps and sleeps._  
_And my mother? She divides_  
_the rice, today’s portion from tomorrow’s,_  
_tomorrow’s from ever after._  
_And my father. He faces me and rows_  
_toward what he can’t see._  
_And my God._  
_What have I done with my God?_

\- “Little Round” by Li Young Lee

* * *

The Force is a strange thing, and Rex doesn’t understand it entirely. He can feel its influence sometimes, like wisps of steam again his skin, or whispers in the far reaches of his mind. Now, in the dead of night, it feels like pricks along the back of his neck.

_I’ve got a bad feeling about this._ Skywalker or Kenobi would often warn before battles. Rex wonders if _this_ is what they meant when they had said that. It’s a sensation uncomfortable enough to have woken him up, and he doesn’t anticipate being able to sleep again any time soon.

With mild frustration, he throws the bedsheets off of his legs and climbs out of bed. Something is amiss on his ship and he intends to figure out what the hell it is so he can go back to bed, dammit.

Not wanting to wake Kix (Who is asleep in his bunk instead of at his station in medbay, for once) Rex creeps silently out into the hall. It feels like something with intangible fingers had reached deep inside of him and is tugging at his guts, trying to pull him along towards whatever is disturbing the Force. It leads him down the darkened halls and all the way down to... Caleb and Cal and Ahsoka’s room? He frowns, trying to ignore the way his heart clenches in a strange anxiety that has become less and less unfamiliar with each passing day: has something happened to his kids?

His first thought is that perhaps Ahsoka has gotten into something she isn’t supposed to (like his blaster again) or that she is, perhaps lost in the throes of a nightmare. But when he slides open the door, he is a little surprised to find that nothing is amiss. Ahsoka is safe and sound, tucked away in her bed. Cal is also asleep, buried up to his chin in three blankets and curled into the tightest, tiniest little ball he can manage. Rex resists the urge to ruffle his fiery red hair.

Caleb, however, is nowhere to be seen.

Rex pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs long-sufferingly. He has a feeling he knows exactly where Caleb is: in the cargo bay practicing Katas. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d found Caleb doing Jedi stuff at ridiculous hours in the early morning.

Rex wastes no time trudging downstairs to collect the boy, his insides twisting up in a sloppy mishmash of worry and irritation—Caleb isn’t okay. This obvious. He doesn’t sleep, he doesn’t eat, he won’t take to anybody, and he’s lost more weight than should be considered ‘healthy’. But neither Rex nor Kix have any idea how to help him—Caleb is so terribly insistent on pushing them both away.

But as he nears the cargo hold, he doesn’t hear the usual sounds of Caleb training. He doesn’t hear anything at all, and that makes his blood run cold. He finds himself moving quicker down the hall, almost running, and when he opens up the door, his heart nearly stop.

Caleb lays on the floor, still as stone. His breath is so shallow that Rex can’t see the rise and fall of his chest and, for a moment, his heart stops.

He is reminded, in this moment, of so many _vode_ laying still in pools of mud and blood.

Carefully, he crouches beside Caleb and presses a pair of fingers to his neck. Luckily, he doesn’t need to find a pulse because the boy begins to stir, green eyes glassy and follow as they slide open languidly, half-lidded. They travel listlessly around the room and land on nothing in particular, unfocused and unseeing.

Rex’s knees are pressed against Caleb’s side, and he can feel heat radiating from the boy, even through the fabric of his sleep pants. He places a gentle hand on Caleb’s sweat-slicked forehead and almost recoils—The kid is burning up! He swipes a thumb across the boy’s forehead, gently brushing away the sticky, sweat-soaked hair that clings to his forehead.

“Why didn’t you tell us that you weren’t feeling well, Caleb?” He asks softly, ruefully. The sound brings slowly brings Caleb’s attention to his, and their eyes meet, though Rex isn’t sure just how lucid Caleb is. “Yeah, we would’ve brought you dinner in bed and everything,” he said, smiling gently, willing Caleb to understand, to smile back.

“Grey?” Caleb croaks out, and Rex’s heart sinks. The boy reaches out a tentative, shaking hand, and gently touches Rex’s face. “Grey, I don’t... I don’t feel good,” His whole body is tremoring as he inches himself closer to Rex.

Rex, of course, obliges and carefully pulls Caleb into his lap. “You must have one hell of a fever, kid, if you think me and Grey look anything alike,” he teases, but Caleb isn’t coherent enough to understand the joke. Instead, he pressed himself against Rex and shudders.

“You’re warm,” he whispers, squeezing his eyes shut.

Carefully, Rex winds one arm around the kid’s shoulders and loops the other beneath his legs. “Probably a lot warmer than the cold floor you’ve been laying on. Let’s get you up to bed, yeah?” he asks, his heart burning with fondness as Caleb presses his face against Rex’s shoulder and nods listlessly.

Caleb is far lighter than Rex expects him to be. It catches him by surprise as he hoists the boy into the air. Caleb doesn’t say anything as Rex carries him back upstairs—the clone figures he must’ve fallen asleep and the silence gives Rex plenty of time to worry. The kid’s lost a lot of weight, what if he’s sick with something dangerous? How long has he been sick for? Is that why he’s been avoiding them?

But instead of carrying Caleb back to his room, Rex head for his own room, and lays Caleb on his bed—it’s not like he has plans to sleep anymore, anyways. Besides, he doesn’t want to accidentally wake up Ahsoka (Force knows how hard it is just to convince her to sleep in the first place.) Nor does he want to spook Cal—who’s getting more comfortable with his presence, but might still be flighty I’d woken up too abruptly. This way, Rex can keep a close eye on him and Kix will be near by in case anything horrendous happens.

He pulls the blanket up over Caleb’s shoulders and smooths back his hair, noting, with great dismay, the absence of the padawan braid. It was only a matter of time, he knew, before Caleb had to get rid of it, but the sight of it gone still made Rex’s heart ache. He lowered his head into his hands. He had so badly wanted to protect the kid from the harsh realities of this new world. But such a feat, he realized, was impossible.

Rex disappears long enough to fetch a damp washcloth, and when he returns he is surprised to see that Caleb is awake once more, though he seems no more lucid than he had been. Carefully, he lays the damp towel across the boy’s forehead, and Caleb’s eyes suddenly snap to meet his, widening with shock or horror before filling with tears.

“Hey, hey, hey, easy kid, it’s alright,” Rex whispers urgently as the ex-padawan struggles to sit himself upright. “You have to rest,” he urges, and has no problem holding the kid down. Eventually, Caleb relaxes, but his wide eyes still remain fixed on Rex, even as tears dribble down his cheeks.

There’s that fondness again, that affection that sweeps through his nerve in his body like a tsunami. “Hey, now. What’s wrong?” he asks.

“I’m sorry...” Caleb whispers, trembling. “I’m so sorry...” he bows his head and moves away from Rex, and Rex absolutely won’t have that. He places a heavy hand on the Jedi’s back and traces meaningless patterns (he did this once with Tup after the horrors of Umbara, after Dogma was carried away never to be seen or heard from again) trying to coax an answer out of the ailing young man.

“What for?” Rex asks.

“You said- I left you behind. Y-you said you’d be right behind me and I-I ... forgive me, Master,” Caleb’s voice cracks under the millstone weight of grief.

It feels as if the entire room is swallowed up in the yawning maw of death, as if the ship has crashed into the surface of some unknown planet and the earth and the mud has swallowed them whole.

The heat that radiates off of the shivering boy is making Rex start time sweat—the fever must really be high if he’s hallucinating the dead.

How is Rex supposed to respond to that?

“C’mon, kid. It’s me, Rex. Look at me, kid, I’m right here,” The clone urges, but the Jedi merely shakes his head.

“Rex doesn’t _need_ me,” Caleb mumbles. “He’s got Ahsoka and Kix... and Cal’ll come ‘round. I should’ve stayed with _you_ , I should’ve-“

And this is all that Rex can bear to hear, as he pulls the child up into his arms.

Except, in many ways, Caleb is no more of a child than Rex himself is—they’ve seen too much, done too much, survived too much. In many ways, they are old, old, old.

“Don’t say that,” Rex urges, holding the burning padawan tight in his arms and rocking him, ever so gentle. “Don’t you know how empty our lives would be without you?”

Caleb’s eyes flutter shut and Rex’s panicked heart skips a beat. He’s not dead—Rex can feel still feel the erratIc pounding of his heart—but he still can’t abide the thought of Caleb believing it would be better if he _were_ dead.

“I’m _proud_ of you, little ‘un. I know it’s hard, with everything we’ve gone through, but you’ve done... you’ve done so well,” Rex whispered, his voice thick with the sort of grief, the soft of pain that comes from knowing that you have failed someone.

Caleb’s glassy eyes crack open once again. It isn’t Rex that Caleb hears speaking, it’s Depa Billaba. She’s holding him. She’s _proud_ of him. She doesn’t hate him for leaving her behind.

“I miss you...” he chokes.

Rex’s presses his forehead to Caleb’s. “I know,” he says softly.

“Why did- did you leave me alone?” Caleb asks and Rex opens his mouth to speak, but no sound comes out as the words dry out on his tongue.

What comfort is he meant to offer to the last of the Jedi?

When Rex’s silence stretches on for too long, Caleb eyes, hyaline, empty, addled, drift away, disheartened. The clone, with no words of comfort, can only hold his boy tighter. He closes his own eyes and whispers broken apologies, and doesn’t see as Caleb’s gaze shifts, imperceptibly, to fall on a distant speck—as if they could pierce through the durasteel hull of the ship and fix themselves on the flickering light of a star orbiting light years away.

He feels that familiar wisping sensation—the steam or smoke or warm sunlight—but doesn’t notice the new presence in the room, doesn’t feel the bed dip as she sits beside her padawan and assure him that _No, Caleb. You are not alone. There are others. And I am with you always._

He doesn’t see what Caleb sees: he doesn’t see the old green troll taking refuge in the swamp; doesn’t see the harrowed, grief-wracked man as he wanders the empty sand dunes alone; doesn’t see the human, the Tholothian, the Ithorian, the Rodian, the Nautolan, the Wookie, as the huddle together together in a wind beaten cave to take refuge for the night; he doesn’t see the fair-haired baby rest peacefully in his crib while his unknown sister sleeps just as easily, light years away; doesn’t hear the screams of a tufty, blue-haired newborn as his parents—who would be lost years later, hold him for the first time.

All he sees is the too-young, too-grown-up Jedi closes his eyes and released his millstone weight.

Carefully shifting so that he doesn’t disturb the sleeping Jedi, Rex reaches down for one of the shoes tucked neatly under his bed, and all but hurled it at the sleeping medic, who snaps away with a fury.

“Rex! You have to _stop_ doing that!” he shouts, and Rex shushes him and he hold’s Caleb a little tighter.

“Little Jedi’s sick, Kix,” he whispers hoarsely, and _that_ gets Kix’s attention. He crossed the room with all the grace of a newborn gazelle—nearly killing himself when he trips over one of the rolly-toys Rex had gotten for Ahsoka during their last fueling trip, that has been abandoned in the middle of the room.

“If you want to _keep_ her, Rex, you have to _pick up_ after her,” Kix growls, kicking the toy away, and Rex rolls his eyes.

“She’s not a tooka, _vod_ ,” he spits back.

“I know that, _di’kut._ I _wish_ she was a tooka, a tooka would be much easier to care for,” Kix reaches for their handy-dandy little first aid kit, stowed away in one of Rex’s storage compartments and sits beside his brother and his Jedi. Rex, being immature, ungrateful, and uncivilized, gives him a swift punch in the arm as he sits down beside him. The medic shoots his captain a sharp glare, but otherwise ignores the man, instead turning his attention to Caleb.

The thermometer reads far higher than it should. The blood-pressure cuff gives a higher number than Kix is comfortable with. His heart beats faster than it should at rest.

The verdict: the flu and a compromised immune system from stress.

The treatment: Bedrest, fluids, and a shot in the neck to deliver a payload of acetaminophen to reduce fever and ease pain.

It’s an easy enough procedure—easy enough that Kix is almost unfamiliar with it. Clones, after all, weren’t engineered to get sick. He’d spent long night awake with men who were dying, men who were wracked with infection, men who were wracked nightmares... but he’d never spent his nights away with young man who’d worked himself to the point of sickness.

“He’ll be Alright?” Rex asks softly and Kix nods.

“He’ll be fine,” And there’s a long pause as Kix meticulously disinfects the contents of the first aid kit and replaces them in the storage compartment. “Rex...” he begins, quietly, when his voice has found him once again. “We can’t let him keep doing this to himself,”

As Kix sits down at his bunk, Rex exhales, once more tugging the blankets up around his shoulders. “He just thinks he’s so alone, Kix. I don’t... I don’t know how to help him anymore,”

Kix stares down at his hands for a long time, thinking, before he rises abruptly and yanks his bed towards’s Rex’s, pushing the two together.

“Guess we just have to do what we used to with the shinies,” he says, bunching you the covers into a little nest and sidling up to Rex and the kid. “We just have to show ‘im that he’s not alone,”

Two pairs of loving arms wrap tight around the sickly Jedi. Two clones spend the night awake, watching for even breaths and signs of nightmares, taking turns to pull away just long enough to wet the washcloth and return it to the boy’s forehead.

Two clones spend the night awake, worrying for a boy who believes he cannot belong anywhere, that he has no where left to go.

Two clones spend the night awake until the fever breaks, and two green eyes crack open, red and tired but sharper in coherency.

Caleb shifts, taking in his surroundings, taking in the anxious heat of the two clones he is sandwiched between. Immediately, he is ashamed. “Where am I?” he asks, voice hoarse, and winces as the sound irritates his raw throat and pounding head.

“Up in our room,” Kix says, weaseling out of their nest to fetch a thermometer. Caleb’s temperature reads just high enough to still cause chills and aches, but low enough that worry is no longer needed. However, instead of returning to the safety of their little blanket fort, he remains upright, frowning, and puts his hands on his hips.

“Why did you tell me you weren’t feeling well?” he demands, and Caleb wants to shrink away, but doesn’t. He hasn’t got the energy. So, instead, he presses his face against Rex’s chest and closes his eyes.

He hasn’t been held in a long time. He hasn’t let himself be held in a long time. Not since the Jedi died. He misses is, misses feeling wanted, misses feeling like he’s a part of something.

Rex’s arms tighten around his shoulders. “I found you passed out on the cargo bay floor. You really had me worried there, kid. You can’t keep doing this to yourself,”

Caleb winces, his fingers gripping into the fabric of Rex’s night clothes. He holds on, just for a moment, before feeling childish and pulling away. Still, he doesn’t say anything. What is he supposed to say?

“Caleb, you’ve got to talk to us. We’re your friends, we want to help,” Rex urges.

Caleb’s eyes brim with tears. They’re pressing too close to a delicate subject, a chink along his tight shields. They’re going to make him crack and he doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want to let them in. He feels like the inside of him is ugly. He doesn’t want them to see that.

“You wouldn’t understand,” he whispers.

Rex’s mouth runs dry. He feels a wave of shame wash over him in this moment: he was a commander once. He’s supposed to know what to say. He doesn’t. He looks urgently to Kix, but Kix’s eyes are averted, his jaw clamped shut—he’s giving the kid time to think, to process his thoughts.

“I’m the very last of the Jedi...” Caleb whispers, once again giving into the urge to cling to Rex because he needs the physical contact, needs the _affection_ like an addict needs a hit. He craves it so bad that his skin itches, that his hands tremble, that his heart beats erratically. But now that Rex has his arms around him, the crushing anxiety dissipates. He feels like he can breathe for the first time in months, and even the pounding of his head and the aching in his joints seems to diminish. He’s tired. His head feels too heavy, so he rests it against Rex’s shoulder and decides not to feel guilty about it.

“What about Cal and Ahsoka? They’re here too,” Rex asks, but Caleb only winces.

“Ahsoka doesn’t even remember anything. She’s blocked it all out. It used to just be the Temple stuff but lately... a couple of days about she asked me what a Jedi was. And Cal...” Caleb closes his eyes. “He doesn’t want to be a Jedi anymore. He wasn’t to be-“

“A medic. I know,” Kix interrupted softly, finally returning to the nest and placing a hand on his Jedi’s back.

“I stopped asking him to train or meditate with me because he just gets angry. I-I shouldn’t be mad, I know I should but... but it isn’t fair. I’m the only one left. I have to... I have to fix it. I have to train more Jedi, build a Temple, I-I can’t let it all be lost but I don’t know how to-“ he wrenches away from the clones, violently.

Kix, eagle eyed, notices the pale green pallor of his face and hoists the nearest waste bin under Caleb’s chin just as the young, burdened Jedi begins to vomit.

Rex looks... a little disgusted frankly, particularly by the smell, but Kix is entirely unfazed, rubbing circles on Caleb’s back as he spits up bile mouthful after mouthful until there’s nothing left to heave up.

“That’s it. Better out than in,” Kix assures, and shoots a glare at Rex, who stares wide eyed, panicked, at the medic.

_Vode_ don’t get sick. Sure, a fever was one thing—Rex knew how to deal with a fever. Fevers were a common ailment, even among the ranks of genetically modified super soldiers—they accompanied bacterial infection, heat exhaustion, certain medications or immunizations, sometimes even stress or lack of sleep was enough to trigger a mild fever. Vomiting, however, was another thing entirely. The only time Rex has ever seen a man vomit was if he

A. had done one too many shots at the 79s

B. had been poisoned (by an actual, lethal, toxic substance or by Wooley’s cooking or homebrew that Slag used to make, that was strong enough to strip paint)

C. had a badly infected wound, or

D. was dying.

Caleb isn’t old enough to drinks and Rex is fairly certain that he hasn’t had any access to alcohol; he hasn’t got any infected wounds; he hasn’t been in contact with any toxic substances or bad cooking; that only left one option.

Kix looks as if he wants to roll his eyes, but he resists. He understand the feeling. The first time he’s come across a civilian with the flu, he’d nearly lost his shit. Fever, chills, vomiting, pain—surely that had to have been dying. “He’s only sick. It happens to nat-borns sometimes. Remember that time Skywalker got sick?” he asks, and Rex relaxes. Then, he gestures with his head to the door and saying: “Go get a glass of water and see if we have any crackers left,”

So Rex, trusting the judgement of his medic, peels away and disappears out the door. When he returns, Caleb is still leaning heavily against the bin, panting, but appears to have finished ‘worshiping the porcelain god’ as it were. Still, he looks absolutely miserable and Rex’s heart twists in sympathy.

Thank god the Kaminoans removes _that_ feature from their biology.

“There you go. Any more? Or you think you’re done for now?” Kix asks with great gentleness and compassion.

Rex offers Caleb the water and he rinses out his mouth, spits, and collapses, utter spent, back against Rex, who has claimed his original spot back. Kix pushes the sloshing bucket away to be dealt with after the kid has fallen asleep and says: “You can’t do this to yourself, kid. You’re going to kill yourself if you keep abusing your body this way. You need to rest,”

“I _can’t_ ,” Caleb croaks. “You don’t understand, I’m the last... it’s all up to me now,”

“That’s not true,” Rex assures, smoothing back the boys hair. “We may not be Jedi, but we’re still here. And we’ll help you. You’re our family,”

“ _Vode an?”_ Caleb asks, sounding almost hesitant, like he’s intruding on something he has no part in. This is their culture, after all. He can’t take that from them.

“ _Vode an,”_ Rex assures, ruffling his hair.

“ _Vod’ika,”_ Kix adds, pinching Caleb’s cheek.

“ _Ad,”_ Rex says suddenly, an image of Ahsoka popping up to the forefront of his brain.

Caleb’s eyes crack open, as if he can barely stay awake. “What does that mean?” he asks.

“Son,” Kix says.

It takes a long time for Caleb’s sickness-addled brain to make the connection. But when understand finally sets it, Caleb smiles, bittersweet and watery, and settles in just a little closer to Rex and Kix.

“No.”

“No?” Rex echoes, confused. Kix doesn’t say anything, doesn’t do more than look bewildered, but Caleb leans over to rest a little more of his weight on the medic, just to show Kix that he isn’t understand.

“Master Depa... Master Depa was my _buir_ ,” he whispers, his stomach twisting up in familiar grief. He almost thinks he might vomit again. “I cannot replace her,”

_You are not alone. There are others. And I am with you always._

The memory caresses the very edge of his consciousness, and a flood of warmth and compassion and understanding and _love_ floods down a broken bond.

“ _Vod’ika,_ then,” Kix says and Caleb nods.

“Careful about what you wish for, kid,” Rex warns. “Little brothers are the perfect target for pranks,”

“Good. Keep me on m’ toes,” Caleb mumbles, half asleep.

Kix pretends that his throat doesn’t constrict as he remembers the pranks he suffered at the hands of Fives and Echo when he and Jesse and Hardcase first joined the 501st.

“You really aren’t alone,” Kix reiterates, perhaps spurred on by memories of brotherhood. “Not Just us, either. There have to be others who survived,”

Caleb crack his eyes open, one last time, and asks, with more Hope than hes will to admit, “You think so?”

“I do,” Kix says, and Rex nods his head.

“I do too. And we’ll find ‘em, kid. I promise you, we’ll find ‘em,”

“Not tonight, though,” Kix interjects, his tone pointing towards ‘warning’. “Tonight, you need to rest,”

“Can I stay here?” Caleb asks, though he certainly already knows what the answer is.

“Of course,” Rex says, and Kix agrees.

For the first time since the world ended, two lost clones and an orphaned Jedi sleep through the night without nightmares.


	11. A Long Autumn Voyage with the Days Darkening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry about such a long hiatus. I took a break to finish my other story, “The Mercy” and then I just... really struggled with this chapter. 
> 
> I’m trying to figure out where I want this story to go, and What the actual end goal is.

_ She prayed in Russian and Yiddish _

_ to find her family in New York, prayers _

_ unheard or misunderstood or perhaps ignored _

_ by all the powers that swept the waves of darkness _

_ before she woke, that kept "The Mercy" afloat _

_ while smallpox raged among the passengers _

_ and crew until the dead were buried at sea _

_with strange prayers in a tongue she could not fathom._

\- “The Mercy” by Philip Levine

* * *

  
Kix crouches down in front of Cal and ruffles his hair. “Do you promise to be careful?” he asked, smiling ever so gentle.

Cal nods, smiling eagerly. “Of course!” he promises, adjusting his grip on Ahsoka’s small hand.

Over a year has passed since the fall of the Jedi and the rise of the Empire. The Empire, they quickly discover, in not a kind place for those who do not support its regime.

Forces are rising in the shadows. The winds whisper of _rebellion._ People are suffering.

For weeks now, Rex and Kix have been searching for a quite planet to build a home for their adopted Jedi. But this has not been an easy task. The Empire is ever vigilant. Rex and Kix wear a dangerous face. They have struggled, over the past few months, not to be recognized.

Luckily, this planet is a quiet place. He doesn’t think they will attract much attention here. Nevertheless, it is wiser to send Cal to the market. His face will not be as easily recognized. It is safer, even though Kix doesn’t like it. Nevertheless, Cal is eager to prove himself.

“I promise I’ll be careful. And I promise we’ll be quick,”

“ _Ba’vodu,_ we’ll be safe! We’ll be safe!” Ahsoka exclaims, eagerly tugging on Cal’s hand. “But hurry, let’s go! Let’s go!” she whines, leaning backwards with all her body weight.

Kix smiles. A ship is a terrible place to spend a childhood. Ahsoka is far too active and far to curious to spend her life in such a small place. They need to find somewhere else to live, to build a home.

“Do you have your lightsaber on you?” Kix asked.

Cal’s face falls and he tugs and the hems of his oversized pink poncho. He’s still not fond of doing “Jedi thing”—including carrying a lightsaber (Kix suspects post-traumatic stress to be the cause of his avoidance)—nevertheless, Kix and Rex both insist he carry the weapon every time he leaves the ship.

“Yeah, I’ve got it,” he says.

“Cmon, let’s go! I wanna get snacks and hunt bugs!” Ahsoka whines petulantly.

Kix smiles and ruffles Cal’s hair. “Alright,” he says at last. “Off you go,”

“Yay!” Ahsoka exclaims and, still holding onto Cal’s hand, bolts off so fast, she nearly pulls his arm from his socket.

“Ow! Hey, okay, I’m coming!” Cal complains, grabbing her shoulders to try and slow her down for a moment while he twists around to wave goodbye to Kix. “Bye! We’ll see you soon!” he exclaims.

He doesn’t yet know that it will be a long time before he and Ahsoka see Kix and Rex and Caleb again.

The town is bigger than Cal had expected. There are far more shops and far more people milling about than he had expected. Rightly so, it makes him nervous, and he pulls Ahsoka just a little bit closer.

“Okay. Where do you wanna go first?” he asks, though he already knows the answer.

Ahsoka’s face lights up. “Food! Food! I wanna get a snackie!” she exclaims and he chuckles anxiously.

“Sh, sh... not too loud, okay? Inside voice,” Cal chides, nervous of all the eyes on him.

Ahsoka frowns and puts her hands on her hips. “But we’re _outside_ ,” she says very loudly, and Cal winces.

“I know. I know. Just... be a little quieter, okay?” he requests and she accepts this without question.

“Okie dokie! Do they have bugs here? I wanna catch a bug, but I promise I won’t eat it. I wanna keep it and make a bug farm so I have lots of snacks,” Ahsoka rambles, happy to talk about whatever comes to mind.

“You shouldn’t eat bugs, Ahsoka,” he says softly, distractedly, as he spots a pair of Storm Troopers patrolling a few meters up ahead. Briefly panicked, he steers Ahsoka down a little back alley.

“C’mon, hurry,” he whispers, briefly tempted to pick her up and bolt, even though he knows his back isn’t strong enough to carry her yet.

They wander through the twisting labyrinth of back alley’s until Cal feels like they’re safe. He tugs the hood of the poncho up over his head and does the same to Ahsoka’s as they re-emerge back onto the Strip.

“Nooo! Hey I want it down!” Ahsoka whines, forcefully tugging the hood of her poncho back down.

“Hey, if you leave it up, I’ll buy you some sweet rolls for a treat,” Cal offers.

He shouldn’t be bribing. He know he shouldn’t. He knows that both Kix and Rex are going to get on his case for bribing her into obedience with the promise of sweet rolls. At years old, she’s right at the age where she’s learning that she can get what she wants by throwing tantrums or other such manipulative tactics. Rex and Kix have been trying to teach her that, no, she can’t scream every time she doesn’t get what she wants because, no, she won’t always get what she wants and that’s okay. This little bribery actively undermines all the work Kix and Rex have been doing, but Cal doesn’t really care. He just wants her to be quiet. He doesn’t want to attract the attention of the Storm Troopers.

Immediately, Ahsoka’s face lights up.

“Okay!” she exclaims, and tugs the hood back down into place.

Relieved, he steers her towards the nearest street vendor, trying to keep his head low.

“Get anything you want,” he says absently and Ahsoka’s eyes shine line stars.

“Anything?” she repeats.

“Yeah, go ahead, anything,”

So she takes advantage of this, and doesn’t get anything nutritious. She gets herself a deep friend sweet roll that’s positively slathered in chocolate sauce and eats it with her hands, and Cal doesn’t say anything about it.

There’s a bad energy in this place.

He doesn’t want to call it the Force, because that word leaves an icky taste in his mouth. Nevertheless, something is wrong. He just wants to get their groceries and go.

He tugs Ahsoka along, purchasing fruits and vegetables and four and sugar and meat, before making his way down to the Parts District to see if he can find some of the spare parts Rex has been looking for to tune up the ship.

He let’s go of Ahsoka’s hand, just for a moment, when he spots something among the piles of scrap.

A little droid, a BD-1 unit to be exact.

Despite the bad energy that hangs heavy in the hair around them, he feels a certain _weightlessness_ radiating off of the droid, a light that calls him and tugs him forward.

“How much for the droid?” Cal asks without really thinking.

The shopkeeper, some big lasat woman, bends over the desk of the shop to get a better look at what he’s pointing at. She wrinkles her nose with distaste.

“That old thing? Ten credits and he’s yours. He’s practically worthless, he’s broke and nobody here can fix ‘im,”

Cal nod’s eagerly. His stomach is twisting itself in knots. He has to have this droid. So he sinks his hand into his pocket and fishes out the credits, practically tossing them at the poor woman so he can stoop down and pick up his new droid.

Why is he so excited? He’s never been particularly interested in droids or machines or engineering before. He wants to be a medic, after all. Nevertheless, there’s something about this droid that’s monumentally important. Cal can feel it.

The second Cal puts his hand on the droid’s head, the Force ignites like fuel set aflame.

Psychometry is a rare gift, one that Cal has struggled with all of his life. It is a difficult burden, to touch something and see the past. However, since the downfall of the Jedi, the Force has been relatively quiet. He hasn’t _touched_ and _seen_ in a long time.

Now, however, it feels as if the Force is waking up for the first time ever. It feels like an explosion, like the birth of the universe. The droid carries with him an impossible history. Cal sees things he doesn’t understand, hears things he can only barely pick out.

_Holocron._

_Children._

_Bogano._

_Cordova._

_Zeffo._

_Vault._

Cal scrambles backwards, chest heaving as the overwhelming vision fades like the receding tide. The droid’s eyes light up for what must be the first time in ages, and he chirps, first in greeting, then in concern.

“No, it’s alright, I’m alright,” Cal manages, shifting away from the prying eyes of the woman at the shop counter.

“You’re alright?” she asks hesitantly, and Cal is suddenly aware of the many eyes that are on him.

“I-I am. Don’t worry, I’m fine. Just got a little lightheaded is all,” Cal says with a weak chuckle as the little BD-1 unit goes bounding over to him, nudging Cal in the knee with his head and whooping in greeting.

“Yeah, hey there, it’s nice to meet you too. I’m Cal,” the boy says softly, twisting to pat the droid on the head while still keeping his eyes fixed on the shopkeeper, whose own eyes have grown wide in shock.

“Lookit that! You got it to work! How did you do that?” she exclaims, much too loudly for Cal’s liking.

Cal is quick to scramble to his feet, picking up the droid and holding him close, perhaps seeking comfort, or perhaps afraid that the droid will be taken away.

“I-I don’t know,” Cal stammers. “I only touched it and it came on,” he explains. There are far too many people here. There are too many prying eyes and ears. Too many people who could look too close and see Cal for who he really is. Too many people who might recognize him, who might turn him in to the fledging Empire.

The shopkeeper merely smiles, perhaps a little too knowingly for Cal’s taste. “Well then,” she begins. “Perhaps it’s meant to be. Perhaps that little droid has been waiting for you for a long time,” she says, and Cal can only manage a sheepish smile.

Suddenly, a scream erupts followed by a desperate, terrified cry: “ _Cal!”_

Cal’s heart stops. Where is Ahsoka?

He twists around, his eyes wide in terror as he searches for his younger sister. There are too many people in this place. The streets are too crowded. There are too many prying eyes and ears. Too many hands. Too many voices.

“Ahsoka!” Cal shouts. “Ahsoka where are you!”

“ _Cal!”_ she screams again, and Cal pushes through the crowd, following the voice, scrambling to find the little togruta.

BD-1 trills in panic and confusion. Cal, who is breathing so rapidly he can hardly speak, gives the simplest answer he can: “Ahsoka, my- my sister, we have to find her!”

The droid trills once more, and Cal understands. _Human?_ the droid asks.

“No, Togruta! Hurry we have to-“ Cal cuts himself off as he sees, between the dusty, moving legs of the throngs of people, a flash of squirming blue and orange.

“Ahsoka!” he shouts, but she doesn’t call back this time.

He breaks through the densest part of the crowd just in time to see a few shadowy figures disappearing into a dim alley way. He changes after them, heart pounding. He shouldn’t be running, shouldn’t be exerting himself like this, but what other choice does he have?

“Hey!” he shouts as he rounds a corner just in time to see three very tall, hulking figures stuffing Ahsoka’s unmoving body into what appears to be a burlap sack.

“Let her go!” Cal shouts, reaching underneath the poncho to grasp his lightsaber.

He never gets the chance.

Somebody comes up from behind him, somebody who is far bigger and far strong than he is, holds him in his place and presses a cold, damp cloth over his mouth and nose.

Cal struggles for as long as he can, panicked, desperate, hyperventilating, but it isn’t long before the world gives way to an ocean of darkness.

\- - -

Cal’s lungs ache. He feels he hasn’t tasted air in months. His shoulders ache and every single inch of him is cold.

It takes him a long time before he is able to slide his eyes open and the sticky, lingering darkness cracks apart into dim light. He’s in a cage of some sort. It’s so small he has to keep himself curled up—there’s nowhere else for his limbs to go.

They’ve taken everything from him—his lightsaber, his new droid, even his clothes. He’s been left shivering on the floor in only his underwear. He would probably be deeply embarrassed, if he wasn’t so afraid.

He doesn’t like being trapped in such a small space. He doesn’t like that he cannot move. What’s worse, he feels like he cannot breathe.

Lithe, trembling fingers stretch up to touch his throat and he finds, to his great horror, there is a heavy collar around his neck, digging into skin.

Fear-bright eyes flicker around the room, searching, desperately, for Ahsoka. She must be here too, he can sense her Force presence nearby.

“Ahsoka!” he whispers, panicked, desperately hoping that his captors don’t hear him.

He hears a muffled cry of distress and, blinking in the darkness, squints and makes out her small, trembling figure in the corner. She isn’t in a cage like he is, but they have her bound in tight rope and gagged. He doesn’t need to see her to feel the distress that radiates off of her in waves.

She makes another muffled found and squirms, panicked and distressed.

“Hey, hey i-it’s okay,” he says quietly. “I’ll get us out, don’t worry. I’ll keep us safe,” he promises and somewhere in the back of his head, he wonders if this is a promise he can keep.

Ahsoka stands up on wobbling legs and takes two steps towards him before something tugs her backwards—they’ve got her on a leash like an animal. He feels almost sick.

“H-hey... it’s okay. I promise it’ll be okay,” he whispers, his voice cracking.

At the front of the ship, he hears voices.

“He’s got a lightsaber. We should turn him over to the Empire. They’ll know what to do with him,” says a voice, feminine and garbled by the metallic warble of a vocoder.

“The Empire pays well for Jedi,” says another voice, cold and hard.

A third voice speaks, heavy with a Ryloth accent: “I’d sooner trust a Hutt than trust the Empire. They’d probably kill us on the spot just to avoid the having to make a payment,”

“No, Cattar is right,” says the first voice. “The Empire can’t be trusted. We ought to stick with the original plan. Sell ‘im to the slavers. He’s young and pretty—his body will fetch a high price,”

Cal’s skin is crawling. He can’t think, he can’t breathe. The whole world feels numb and cold. He doesn’t want to be a slave. He doesn’t want to be _that_ sort of slave.

“And what about the Togruta?” the second voice asks.

“Togruta are _very_ popular,” the garbled first voice response, using a sickly sweet tone that make Cal’s stomach roll.

He wants to scream.

“They won’t take her, she’s too young,” the third voice—Cattar—quips. “They won’t take her,”

“Maybe they can keep her as a pet,” the garbled voice suggests.

“No, she’s too _feral_. Did you see what she did to my arm? She nearly took a chunk right out of me with her teeth! I say we put her down. We’ll be coming up on Bracca in a couple of minutes and we need to stop for fuel anyways—I’ll just take her outback and shoot her there. It’s not worth the trouble,” the second voice growls, and Cal stops listening.

His brain is so overloaded with information and _fear_ , he can hardly even begin to process his surrounds. There’s too much movement, too many noises, too many sounds.

The breathing catches in Cal’s throat and he suddenly feels a wetness on his cheeks.

Where is Kix? He wants Kix. Kix could protect him.

Cal squeezes his eyes shut and releases a shuttering breath. It has been a long time since he touched the Force. Even now, he wants to run away from it. Nevertheless, he closes his eyes and allows himself to slide into meditation for the first time in over a year.

It’s a painful feeling. It feels like bending a joint that has been locked away in a cast. It feels like exercising muscles that haven’t been worked for ages. It aches. It feels like pins and needles.

He feels himself grow distant his body, feels his limbs grow heavy and fall away until the only sensation left is the far-away beating of his heart. He imagines him self as he is, curled up in his too-small cage onboard an unfamiliar ship. He pictures the curve of his spine, pressed up against the bars of the cage. He pictures his locked joints and slackened face. Then, slowly, he imagines himself unfurling, standing up, leaving his body behind.

The Force has missed him. The Force wraps him in light and warmth, it kisses the top of his head like a father welcoming home a wayward child. It takes his and in its own and-

The ship lurches violently as it drops out of hyperspace, knocking Cal from his meditation. His beating heart quickens it’s pace as he hears the crew begin preparing the ship for landing.

Cal squeezes his eyes shut, desperately trying to make contact with the Force once more, trying to figure out an escape plan, something, _anything—_ but his heart is beating far too fast and the _panic panic panic_ is making his chest feel tight and he can’t breath, he can’t think, he can’t—

The ship lurches once more and the engine falls silent.

They’ve landed.

Somebody—a man, the second voice—emerges from the cockpit and grabs Ahsoka by the arm, pulling her to her feet. He severs the rope that’s kept her effectively leashed with a vibroblade and Ahsoka _screams._

“Let her go! Let her go!” Cal shouts in rage and terror and desperation Ahsoka writhes.

Cal attempts to use the Force to separate Ahsoka from her captor but he fails—he’s spent so long avoiding the Force that his connection with it has grown weak. He is out of practice.

The man’s head snaps towards Cal and he doesn’t say a word as he restrains Ahsoka with one hand and whips out his blaster with the other. He fires several shots that ricochet off the bars of the little cage and—

_Cal is no longer in some tiny cage in an unfamiliar ship, he’s in the Jedi Temple, he’s_ home _. Except home is not a safe place. Home is a bad place. The walls ooze with blood and screams of pain and fear and death echo through the corridors._

_A clone, an enemy, a_ monster _stalks towards him, faceless, silent._

Cal freezes, utterly paralyzed by an old memory.

Ahsoka screams and sobs, begging for help, begging for Cal, but he can’t hear her. So, she lashes out in the Force and everything in the room that isn’t nailed down goes _flying._

Everything except their captor.

He maintains a firm grip on Ahsoka, drawing the knife over one of her lekku, leave a deep gash in its wake, blood bubbling up to the surface and running down her lek in bright red rivers.

Ahsoka’s begins to sob as the man drags her outside and her thrashing grows weaker as the energy drains from her body.

It is the sound of the ship’s hatch doors opening that snaps Cal from his terrified memories.

“No! No! No!” he screams, just as he watches Ahsoka and the man disappear.

For a long time, there is nothing, no noise, no movement, only silence. Then, there is shouting, followed by blaster fire.

Suddenly, the hatch doors open once more and three men storm onto the ship. They gun down the two remain grew members at the front of the ship and begin searching the ship for—

One of them spots Cal’s cage.

“Jesse, Grey, I’ve got something!”

—for _him._

The man crouches down in front of the cage and when their eyes meet, Cal’s heart nearly stops.

A clone.

The man is a clone.

Cal reels backwards as far as he can go inside the tiny little cage. “No! Don’t!” he exclaims breathlessly, unsure if he should feel terrified or relieved and simultaneously feeling _both._

The clone’s expression softens into one of the kindest smiles Cal as ever seen. “It’s alright, we’re not gonna hurt you, we’re here to rescue you. Jesse, help me break this lock!”


	12. And Still Our Human Lives Meant Nothing

_We didn’t know their names. We didn’t know their children. We were 700,000 beings, so many human beings, and still our human lives meant nothing. We began to understand the infinities of lives lost, the ones we killed, the ones we buried. If you learn to love this way, the whole world destroys you._

-“In the Exclusion Zone” by Melanie Rae Thon

* * *

Echo is not like the others. Jesse, Rex, Hardcase, Kix, Tup, Dogma, Appo, Vaughn—they are brothers. They clones. Echo is not a clone. Perhaps, a long time ago, he was. But they took that identity from him when they took his arms and legs.

Perhaps he was always different, right from the moment he was decanted.

From the moment he was born, there was Light. There has always been Light. He could see it, shifting above his head like _aurora borealis._

Fives could see the Light.

Hevy, Cutup, Droidbait... they could all see the Light.

Fives is dead.

Hevy, Cutup, Droidbait... they are all dead.

Echo is the last. He alone can see the Light. But nobody else. Never anybody else.

Echo is not a clone, he is something different now—a cruel amalgamation of twisted metal and hot blood. He is different from the others. Perhaps he has always been different.

Fives was not different. He and Fives were the same. Fives could see the Light, could see the shifting Colors. But Fives is gone. Fives isn’t here anymore.

When Rex had first pulled Echo aside and told him of Fives’ fate, gunned down like a dog grown feral, Echo didn’t cry, not in public. He was already so weak. He was already so damaged. He didn’t want to seem more broken than he already was.

The separatists took everything from Echo. They took his arms and legs. They pilfered through his memories and stole his secrets. They violated him. They cut out his heart. They murdered his brother.

Echo was unable to eat for nearly a week. Everything that went down came right back up. At first they gave him milk and broth, then slowly they transitioned to more solid foods—oatmeal and mush. They told him that he was sick because his body wasn’t used to solid foods, that it didn’t remember how to process them. He didn’t not tell them that they were wrong; that he was sick because Fives was dead, because his other half was _gone_ and his body didn’t know how to cope with that sort of loss.

_We began to understand the infinities of lives lost, the ones we killed, the ones we buried._

They offered him a place among the ranks of the Bad Batch. They offered him a chance to serve among his own kind.

_Freaks, just like you._

Echo politely declined.

Nobody was cruel to him. They did not call him names. Some were kind to him—Jesse, Kix, Rex (are they the only ones left?)—but most just avoid him.

Skywalker was kind and patient with him. They spent a lot of time together in his quarters as he upgraded Echo’s prosthetics taught him how to care for his false limbs. He took the painstaking time to connect the electric nerves in his electric prosthetics, to the severed nerves of his severed limbs. Echo cried as Skywalker did so; this was not a task his captors had the patience for. It has been a long time since he could feel his extremities.

At night, he slept in Jesse or Kix’s bunk. Sometimes, they push their bunks together and Echo slept sandwiched between them. It was the only way he could sleep after what had happened. It was the only place he felt safe.

Then, one day, everything changes.

General Skywalker returns from some away mission, and his eyes are a sickly yellow color, like bile or magma. He calls himself Darth Vader and Echo knows immediately knows that General Skywalker is dead.

Order 66 is issued and suddenly his brothers are not his brothers any more. They do not remove their helmets. They do not call him by his name. They are not people anymore.

Echo doesn’t change when the Order is given. The separatists have picked apart his brain. They have defiled him. They have freed him from the curse of the chip.

He almost wishes they hadn’t.

They storm the Jedi Temple and Echo almost screams as he watches his brothers slaughter every Jedi that comes across their path.

Jesse guns down Master Che, the Jedi Master Healer.

Kix shoots a middle-age Lasat Jedi right between the eyes as his tiny, ginger-haired padawan runs away in terror.

Skywalker—Vader—mutilates a terrified group of baby Jedi, no older than five or six years old.

Echo cannot see the Light. There are no Colors shifting above him.

In horror, Echo tears off his bucket and runs away. He will not participate in this. He will not condone the slaughter of these people. He will not partake in Genocide.

Somewhere behind him, somebody (it sounds like Rex) shouts, “Traitor!” and his brothers open fire on him. Something strikes him in the leg, but his legs are not his own, so he keeps moving, keeps running.

He flees deep into the Temple and flings himself into the first dark, empty room he finds. He cannot even begin to understand the tragedy that has befallen his _vode_ and his _jetii._ It is a loss the human mind was not designed to comprehend. He throws off his bucket, as if it is suffocating him, and tosses it aside to be forgotten forever. He cannot be a part of this. He cannot follow this order. Treason is more favorable than this.

When Rex had rescued him _oh so long ago,_ when they had spoken of Fives’ death, they had touched on the subject of the chips, and Echo couldn’t bring himself to believe in such a fallacy, such an unfounded conspiracy.

He understands now. He has seen the cruelty of the chips unfold before his very eyes. He has seen the work of their crimes, the broken bones, the spilled blood. He presses his hands over his ears and his face twists into an agonized scream, though no sound comes out. In the moments before his heart is about to break, he feels as if the sky is falling. He can feel the Light writhing in agony, sees faces flash before his eyes—tortured death masks belonging to children, elders, friends, loved ones… his brothers will leave no survivors.

He is on his knees now. He isn’t entire sure how or when that happened. He places his hands on the floor as well, bracing against the merciful ground and doubles over, sobbing—utterly silent, chest and back heaving, face contorted—until he retches and gasps for air. His throat is raw. He tastes blood, though he isn’t sure who’s blood it is—his own or the blood of the Jedi his brothers slaughter so heedlessly.

It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair! The Jedi deserved better than this. His brothers deserve better than this.

_We were 700,000 human beings, so many human beings, and still our human lives meant nothing._

There is a hand on his back.

Echo twists backwards, angry, afraid. The face he sees is both his own and not his own. The man who stands above him is smiling softly, his whole visage wrapped in a soft blue light. When Echo recognizes the face, or rather, when Echo recognizes the _name—_ all their faces are indistinguishable. It is the _name_ that matters. It is the _name_ that Order 66 has stripped from them—Echo’s eyes well up with a fresh round of unbidden tears.

“Fives…” His voice is soft and full of pain.

The ghost, the hallucination, the falsity— _does it matter? He is_ here _… and Echo has missed him so much—_ merely smiles. He doesn’t open his mouth, he doesn’t speak and Echo is grateful for that tender mercy. To hear his brother’s voice would be his undoing; Echo is already so close to the edge where he stands.

He feels Fives’ fingers travel up his back and curl around his shoulder, squeezing tightly, reassuringly. With some hesitation, Echo reaches up and ever so gentle places his hand on his brother’s, almost afraid his fingers will phase through. They do not. A third round of tears begin their course down Echo’s ashen cheeks.

“You have to help me! I-I don’t know what to do!” he exclaims, softly. His fingers tighten around Fives’ and he bows his head. His eyes flutter shut, as if he hopes to block out everything else so he can better focus on the feeling of his brother’s hand under his.

“I don’t know what to do…” he chokes out, low and mournful.

Suddenly, the sensation is gone. Desperate for comfort, for contact—desperate not to lose his brother once again, he wheels around frantically.

“Fives? Fives!” he shouts, louder than he ought to.

The room is empty. The only response he receives is the heavy footfalls of boots, followed by the shout: “In here! In here!” Then, a figure appears in the door.

Echo scrambles to his feet, one hand flying to his hip, though he remains uncertain. Would he really shoot a brother? Would he really kill one of his _vode?_ A clinical voice (speaking exclusively in Kaminoan) answers: ‘depends on who it is.’ Would he really have that much trouble taking out some nameless shiny to save his own life? Again, that voice answers: ‘yes’, and he hates himself.

Except the figure that emerges in the doorway is not some nameless, paintless shiny. Echo recognizes the fanned-out pauldrons of an ARC Trooper. He recognizes the 501st blue paint. He recognizes the grey cog on the front of his helmet. Echo recognizes this man as his best friend.

“Jesse…” he whispers, hollow and disappointed. The Kaminoan voice reminds him that ought to be reaching for his blaster, ought to be firing the trigger, but he cannot. How could he? This man is his brother. This man is his best friend. This man bunks with him when the nights grow too cold and the ache for Fives grows too painful. This man has sat beside him, shoulder to shoulder, and sung songs with him beside the fires at base camp. This man had stood up for Fives on Umbara, had nearly lost his life at the hands of a firing squad, had fought tooth and nail for his independence.

This man is holding Echo at gunpoint.

“ARC-21-0408, you are under arrest for treason against the Empire,” Jesse says and the tone of his voice sends Echo spiraling. He feels like his legs have suddenly become gelatinous, like the whole world is suddenly going to drop out beneath his feet.

Just last night he and Jesse were shoulder to shoulder in the 79s talking about some Nautolan Echo wanted to flirt with but felt a little unsure about, given his rather unflattering cybernetics.

Now, he doesn’t even call Echo by name.

_We began to understand the infinities of the lives lost, the ones we killed, the ones we buried._

“Jesse, it’s me! Come on, look at me! You’re not seeing me. It’s me, Echo, your buddy. Remember last night, _vod?_ You and me at the 79s? Trying to help me flirt with that guy? Jesse, it’s _me_ ,” Echo begs, stepping backwards, his hand fleeing from his hip. He can’t kill Jesse. He doesn’t have the heart.

“You will be executed for treason,”

Echo’s eyes blow wide in horror. “Jesse, c’mon _vod. Look at me!”_ he shouts, banging his hands against his chest.

Jesse holds up his blaster. Is this the way it ends? Probably. The future is looking bleaker and bleaker with every passing second. Jesse’s got his blaster trained on Echo and Echo keeps waiting, waiting, waiting… (if nothing else, maybe he’ll get to see Fives again.) Except… Jesse doesn’t fire. He hesitates, perfectly still.

“Jesse, it’s _me_. Please, don’t do this. Whatever’s happening in that head of yours, you have to fight it. It’s me, Jesse! It’s me!”

Jesse’s hand begins to shake, violently. Even from beneath the armor, Echo watches as every muscle in his body grows tense.

“G-good… good soldiers follow orders,” he grinds out, his voice rough.

“You don’t want to do this. I know you don’t want to do this,” Echo says. “We’re not just numbers, they can’t take away our independence like this. You and Fives and-and Hevy. That’s what you all fought for on Umbara, right? Names, not numbers. Your name is Jesse. Don’t- don’t you remember?” Echo’s voice is shaking.

There’s another part of his head—quiet and tired—that doesn’t want Jesse to wake up. He wants Jesse to pull the trigger. He wants this nightmare to be over already. He misses Fives. He wants to see Fives again.

The tremor in Jesse’s hand grows more and more violent. Soon, his whole body is shaking as he fights, torn between free thought and the chip. In that moment, it occurs to Echo that, perhaps the chips can’t be defeated. Perhaps free thought is no longer an option. Perhaps he is only causing Jesse undue pain.

“Jesse…” Echo says softly. “Whatever happens, I want you to know that I forgive you,” His eyes slip closed. This is his choice. “The times we had together were the very best and I love you more than anything in the galaxy. Whatever happens, don’t beat yourself up. None of this was your fault. I forgive you. I’ll always forgive you,”

A pair of hands wraps around the muzzle of Jesse’s blaster. Echo’s eyes are shut. He doesn’t see Fives standing beside their tortured _vod,_ doesn’t see him gently push the blaster away. He doesn’t see Fives grin manically—just like he always used to—as he bestows some sacred, merciful gift on Jesse and eases the burden of the Chip—just as he would do for Rex and the little Togruta girl upstairs—just as he would do for Kix, as the medic searched the dead for survivors and found that same little girl nestled in an alcove in the Room of a Thousand Fountains.

Echo doesn’t see Fives. Perhaps Jesse doesn’t either. But Echo _does_ hear as the blaster clatters to the floor. His head snaps up and his eyes open wide, watching as Jesse’s head drops and his shoulders bunch up in pain or grief. Jesse’s hands fly to his bucket, scraping at it, scratching at it, before he seems to run out of energy and his hands fall away, hanging loose at his sides. Slowly, he lifts his head.

“…Echo?” he croaks out, voice tight with grief and regret.

Echo stands still, rigidly so, unsure whether or not he should believe this clever ruse. “Jesse?” he asks, just as hesitantly.

Suddenly, Jesse’s hands fly up to his bucket once again, and this time he pries it off, tossing it across the room. He takes in a big gulp of hair and collapses to his knees.

“What have I done!” he cries.

The Light, still twisting in agony, still hot with pain, is calmer now. For a moment, Echo almost thinks he hears Fives’ voice: _Names, not numbers._ Something in Fives’ chest clenches and he lunges forward, dropping to his knees and wrapping his arms around Jesse. He pulled his brother close, holding him tight, just as Jesse had done for him so many times.

_If you learn to love like this, the whole world will kill you._

_-_

Rex is asleep when the world comes apart and the sky caves in. It has been a long time since the fall of the Jedi, since the enslavement of his brothers. These are not the sorts of wounds that will ever heal entirely. They will linger forever, thick and heavy like scar tissue on his very soul. However, that is not to say that they will not improv—they _do_ improve. He misses his _vode,_ he misses them terribly, but he has adjusted to this new life, and he is happy.

These are peaceful times, despite the chaos in the galaxy of the Fledgling Empire. In the past year he has learned many things the GAR would never teach him—he’s learned how to cook (though, admittedly, Kix is far superior at the skill and Caleb trumps them both), he has learned how to sing lullabies and nursery rhymes in Togruti to put his kid (his _ad’ika?_ His daughter? Even now the word feels strange on his tongue.) to sleep. He has learned how to pry bugs out of little Togruta hands and mouths, and he has learned how to _sometimes just turned a blind eye, because she’s already got it and it’s already half eaten._

He and Kix have been teaching Ahsoka to read; he has managed to convince Caleb to teach him meditations and katas (and that has done wonders for Caleb’s mental health, just to feel less alone), and even Cal has become less skittish, going as far as to willingly offer Rex a goodnight hug before bed.

He and Kix still talk about the war, they still grieve over their brothers, they still recite their Remembrances every night, but Rex has watched, with great pride, as his brother’s shoulders have unbunched themselves, his posture righting as self-forgiveness for his proxy crimes slowly begins to sink in to his very soul. He watch as Kix and Cal grow closer and closer, watches as the boy begins to learn about medicine (allows them to bring an injured bogling onto the ship to heal a broken leg—but no, no it cannot stay, absolutely not) and he is happy.

The nightmares, while still very present, have grown less and less frequent in the past months. Now, he naps in the main living area of the ship, with his foot (which he had recently sprained chasing a naked Togruta through the ship after a very giggly bath-time) propped up on a pillow. There is a viewport on the wall above him, and the sunlight filters in from above, warming his face. He has one arm tossed over his eyes and the other has fallen slack at his side, his face eased of any tension as he sleeps.

The dream he has is not unpleasant. Rather, it would be best described as simply “mindless”. There is no purpose to it, it is not the sort of thing that will bear enough weight to remember when he wakes.

Until, that is, the dream begins to shift. The ground seems to fall out from beneath his feet and the scenery dissolves until all that remains is a wash of hazy blue. Before him stands three figures: Ahsoka and Cal stand next to each other and, just behind them—with one hand on Ahsoka’s head and one hand on Cal’s shoulder—stands Fives. Rex feels his throat close up and his mouth run dry. He is overcome with two battling emotions: dread and comfort.

“I’ll protect them, Captain,” Fives promises, in a voice that seemed to echo on forever and ever. “Don’t you worry. I’ll protect them,”

Rex bolts awake in a panic, his heart pounding, his hands shaking.

“Kix!” he shouts. “Where are Ahsoka and Cal!”

Kix sticks his head out from around a corner, his face lathered up with cream as if he was in the middle of shaving. “They’re still out running errands,” he says. “Why? What’s wrong?”

Rex doesn’t miss the worry in his voice, and he can’t ignore the pressure mounting in his own chest. “Something’s happening. I don’t know what it is. Something’s wrong. I’ve got a bad feeling about this, _vod,”_ he says, carefully placing his legs on the floor, ignoring the way his ankle twinges in pain.

“What do you mean?” Kix asks, eyes wide with his own mounting fear, wiping the cream from his face with his sleeve.

“I don’t know, I can’t explain it but-“ Rex falls silent and his eyes grow wide, one hand clutching at his chest.

The Force Bond he shares with Caleb and Ahsoka isn’t something that activates very often. Caleb has been teaching the young Togruta about shielding and, for the most part, Rex hasn’t experienced many proxy-emotions bleeding off from his _ad’ika._ Now, however, all he feels is blinding panic and mounting pain.

_Help me!_ A voice rings out inside of his head. _Caleb! Buir! Help me!_

Caleb comes bursting out of his room, his whole body shaking, his eyes wild with some kind of half-bred cross between panic and barely-tempered rage. He doesn’t even say anything as he practically hurtles himself towards the door, lightsaber already in hand.

“Hey, hey, hey! What’s going on!” Kix demands, catching Caleb by the wrist as he brushes past.

Caleb wrenches his arm free. “It’s Ahsoka! They’ve got her, somebody’s got her!” he exclaims and Rex’s blood freezes in his veins like ice.

“And Cal? What about Cal? Where is he? Is he alright?” The words come tumbling from Kix’s mouth and Rex’s chest tightens as he crosses the room, sliding into his own room to retrieve his blaster.

“I-I don’t know… we don’t have a bond, he’d been shutting himself out of the Force for so long, I don’t know!”

Rex emerges from his room, handing one of his twin blasters to Kix. There isn’t time to run all the way down to medbay so he can retrieve his own, they need to go _now._

“C’mon,” he growls, his voice low and aggressive to mask the fear that threatens to consume him.

They do not know that they will not find their missing family.

-

When Rex and Kix and Caleb finally return to the ship, the night is dark and the sun has been gone for a long, long time. Rex feels as if his blood is stagnant. He cannot thing. His skin tingles. Everything he hears and sees and touches feels muted and blurred and far away.

“I’m sorry…” Caleb whispers, wearing the same expression he had when he first realized that Master Depa was dead. “I-I’m so sorry. I should’ve felt something sooner. I should’ve… I should’ve… gone with them. This is- this is my fault. I-I’m so sorry… I’m so-“

Kix is the one who moves first, pulling Caleb into his arms.

“No,” he says. “No, Caleb, that’s not true,” his voice is soft and gentle and full of such infinite compassion—Rex’s heart aches. Kix has always been a kind, gentle soul, even if he can be somewhat aggressive in his medical practices. “None of this is your fault. How could you have known?”

“The Force-“ Caleb protests, his face bunching up as if he might cry again.   
  


“The Force can only do so much. Didn’t you once tell me that visions weren’t really your thing anyways?” Kix asks, guiding the boy to the seating area and sitting beside him. His voice is light. Perhaps he is trying to reason with the boy, perhaps he is trying to lighten the mood.

There is still very little that Rex understands about the Force. However, even now he can feel Kix’s grief, feel him fighting off the waves of despair over losing the boy he had sworn to protect.

“But I should’ve-!”

“Hush,” Kix’s voice is sterner now and he pulls Caleb a little closer, holds him a little tighter. “Caleb, you are not to blame for this. You can’t be held responsible for the terrible actions of other people,”

Rex’s head begins to spin. A long time ago, all the way back on Umbara (how many years and years and years ago had that been?) Kix had given him this same lecture with this very same, gentle tone of voice.

“We’ll find them,” Rex’s voice is hoarse and he feels torn between burning desperation and blind, fuzzy numbness as he sits beside Caleb and Kix. “We’ll find them. We’ll do whatever it takes to bring them back home,”

Kix’s head snaps up and he meets Rex’s eyes with his own, startled gaze. “Sir, yes, sir,” he affirms, his expression slowly hardening into steely determination.

They had found Echo on Skako Minor, hadn’t they? Against all odds, even after being marked KIA for well over a year, they’d found him. And if they could find Echo, they could find their kids. Rex held onto that determination, that rare hope, fiercely.

“We’ll find them,”

-

Ahsoka is shaking. She doesn’t know the man who has just rescued her, but that doesn’t matter to her. She’d been so frightened—she’d been so, so, _so_ scared. Her fingers dig into the fabric of the pants of her savior.

“Ow! Hey… be careful!” the man snaps gruffly, though Ahsoka can’t find it within her to be frightened by his tone. If anything, she merely holds onto him tighter. His voice sounds like her _buir’s,_ and he sort of looks like him, too—except his hair isn’t short and blond, and he’s got a big scar and one of his eyes is weird and kind of silver looking.

Tears trickle down her cheeks, but she doesn’t make a peep. She can tell that the man who saved her is uncomfortable—she can feel it in the Force—and she’s afraid that if she says too much he might make her go away and she doesn’t want to go away. She wants to stay right where she is and hold onto his leg.

“Jesse, Grey, Echo, what the hell is taking you so long!” he shouts gruffly.

Oops. Ahsoka’s trying really, really, really hard not to cry or be bad, but the man is loud and that scares her. She starts crying for real this time, and can’t seem to make herself be quiet. Above her, the man winces.

“Oh _shit_ ,” he says under his breath and carefully pries her fingers off of his pants. Unfortunately, this only makes her cry _harder_. He was only trying to move her so he could crouch down to her level.

“Hey, kid, it’s okay,” he grumbles, his voice low and rumbly inside his chest. He sounds uncertain, like he has no idea what he’s supposed to do. He reaches out to her, hoping that, maybe, it’ll comfort her, but she flinches away.

The man rolls his eyes dramatically—more towards himself than the little Togruta.

“ _Dammit_ ,” he mutters under his breath. “Shoulda made Gregor or Wooley come. They’re good with kids…” Then, he adds a little louder, “Hey, it’s alright, kid. I’m sorry I startled you. My name’s Wolffe. Please stop crying, you’re giving me a headache,”

He reaches out for her once more and she’s so busy crying that she doesn’t seem to notice when he reached out. He tentatively pats her on the head and _oops maybe that was too much affection_ because she’s suddenly flinging herself into his arms and Wolffe has never felt so uncomfortable in his whole life.

“There there…” he says, and pats her on the back awkwardly.

It’s a while before her crying dies down and she finally released her hold on him. During that time, him mind wanders and, as he glances backwards at the mangled corpse of the trafficker they’ve killed, he idly wonders if he out to hide the body so that the kid doesn’t have to see it.

“You sound like my _buir_ ,” the kid says softly, and, immediately, Wolffe is surprised: the Togruta kid knows Mando’a?

“Who’s your _buir?_ ” he asks, because now it’s going to be their job to take these kids back home.

“He’s called Rex,” the little Togruta says with a wet sniffle, leaning forward to rub her nose against Wolffe’s sleeve.

Wolffe is, frankly, so absolutely, utterly floored that he doesn’t even register what the tiny, disgusting child is doing.

It has to be a coincidence, right? It _has_ to be.

Suddenly, Echo, Jesse, Grey, and some red-haired kid emerge from the ship, and Jesse is beaming like he’s just pilfered a chocolate bar off of somebody.

“Echo was right! I told you he was right!” Jesse exclaims, and he must be speaking a little too loudly because the redhaired kid flinches. Wolffe actively has to resist the urge to shout at his dumb 501st brother for shouting. “He was right about everything! Even the BD-1 unit, check it out!” he exclaims, pointing at the little droid in the red-haired kid’s arms, and the kid scrambles backwards, almost like he’s afraid of Jesse.

Suddenly, Grey freezes. “Ah! Wait. Here—” he says, holding a metal cylinder out to the kid, who snatches it immediately and tucks it away. Wolffe immediately recognizes the object as a lightsaber.

Strange. So the kid’s a baby Jedi. Echo really was right about everything,

“Thanks,” the kid says sheepishly.

“Cal!” the Togruta shrieks and immediately tears herself away from Wolffe’s side, hurtling into the boy—Cal’s arms. He carefully sets the droid on the ground and holds his arms open for the little girl.

“Ahsoka!” he exclaims and holds her close. “Oh Force, I was so worried, I’m so sorry…”

“Cal!” Ahsoka wails, burying her face against his neck. “I was so scared! H-he hurt me and then he-he hurt you and he took your clothes and you weren’t moving and I thought you were dead and then- and then- and then he took me away and I thought- I thought- I… I-!” Her explanation dissolves into helpless tears.

The little BD-1 unit chirps—Wolffe recognizes the binary: _Are you okay?_ and it nudges its head against the Togruta—Ahsoka’s leg.

“It’s okay, I’m so sorry… It’s okay, I’m okay, you’re okay, we’re safe now. It’s okay now…” Cal whispers and Echo slips past them quietly, making his way towards Wolffe’s side.

“So your dream really was right?” Wolffe asks softly and Echo glares.

“Yes. I knew it would be,” he says sharply.

“Hey, I meant no disrespect,” Wolffe growls, holding his arms out placatingly. “And don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that you were right—even if the feral little shit nearly bit off my hand while I was untying her,”

Echo snorts. “You probably deserve it,”

“You’re an ass,” Wolffe deadpans.

“I got it from my commander, _your_ batchmate,” Echo retaliates softly, and once again Wolffe’s stomach drops.

“The little shit speaks Mando’a,” Wolffe says suddenly and Echo raises an eyebrow.

“So?” he asks.

Wolffe hesitates. He doesn’t want to get the kid’s hopes up. They’d all been through so much. He hadn’t seen Jesse smile like this in _months,_ he doesn’t want to give them hope and take it away. Nevertheless…

He crosses his arms. “It’s probably just a coincidence,” he says.

“But…?”

“But she said her _buir_ was called Rex,”

He watches as the color drains from Echo’s face. He looks unsteady and pale—his cybertronics glint in the sunlight.

Wolffe sighs. “Again, it’s probably just a coincidence. _But…_ if he’s a baby Jedi,” he begins, tilting his head towards Cal. “Then she’s probably a baby Jedi too. You were all on Coruscant in the Temple when… when…” he trails off and clears his throat.

Echo’s eyes go wide and bright with hope. “ _Maybe he saved them,_ ” he whispers softly. “Maybe there are others still alive. Clones, Jedi—Wolffe, we have to tell Master Koon about this,”

Wolffe stiffens and sets his jaw. “… I’ll com him and tell him we’re on our way back home,”

_If you learn to love this way, the whole world destroys you._


End file.
